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The Lead, Air Segment is responsible for delivering a robust, mission-ready airborne mission platform for the aircraft. This role owns the airborne infrastructure, avionics, compute, communications, and interfaces that enable mission autonomy, sensors, payloads, and weapons systems to operate reliably in ground and flight test environments. As a first-level people leader, the Lead, Air Segment provides technical leadership, execution ownership, and day-to-day guidance for engineers working on airborne mission systems. This role remains hands-on while also owning delivery, integration, and readiness outcomes for the air segment.
Job Responsibility:
Own end-to-end technical outcomes for the airborne mission platform, from design through integration, test, and flight readiness
Lead the development and integration of airborne mission systems, including the Mission Management System (MMS), onboard compute, networking and avionics, airborne tactical and flight communications, weapons, payload and stores management interfaces, and sensor and camera system hardware and interfaces
Define and maintain clean interfaces between the airborne platform and mission autonomy, ground systems, and external payloads
Ensure the airborne platform is robust, reliable, and capable of supporting evolving mission capabilities across vehicle variants
Drive integration, test planning, and execution in support of ground test and flight test milestones
Identify technical risks early and lead mitigation efforts across hardware, software, and avionics domains
Provide day-to-day technical leadership, mentorship, and feedback to engineers within the Air Segment scope
Coordinate closely with Mission Autonomy and Ground Segment leads to resolve dependencies and integration issues
Communicate status, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to engineering leadership and program stakeholders
Requirements:
Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field
5+ years of experience developing airborne systems, avionics, or mission-critical embedded software
Demonstrated experience owning and delivering complex airborne or vehicle-integrated systems
Strong understanding of airborne compute, networking, and communications architectures
Experience integrating sensors, payloads, or weapons interfaces on a vehicle platform
Proven ability to lead technical execution across multidisciplinary teams
Comfortable operating in a fast-paced development and test environment
Strong communication skills and ability to make and defend technical decisions
Nice to have:
Master’s degree in a relevant technical discipline
Experience supporting ground and flight test campaigns
Familiarity with mission systems architectures and system-of-systems design
Experience with stores management systems (SMS) or payload integration frameworks
Background in autonomy-enabled or unmanned aircraft systems
Prior experience as a technical lead or first-level people leader
Experience working across geographically distributed teams