Staff Systems Engineer, Payload Lead

What you'll do

• Define the perception system architecture by decomposing mission needs into traceable requirements for sensing, compute, and algorithms.
• Manage the sensor suite baseline including hardware selection, configuration across aircraft variants, and interface definitions.
• Develop and defend sensing performance models based on detection probability, false alarm rates, and environmental factors.
• Lead verification and validation strategies including bench testing, hardware-in-the-loop coverage, and flight test data analysis.
• Act as the technical authority during design reviews to ensure perception evidence meets necessary requirements.
• Conduct sensor trade studies to resolve technical conflicts and document results for long-term program use.
• Drive modularity and reuse through sensor abstraction and stable interface definitions across multiple platforms.
• Represent the company as a technical authority with external partners, vendors, and industry bodies.

What we're looking for

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Optics, Physics, Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace, or a related field.
• 5+ years of engineering experience on electro-optical, LiDAR, RADAR, or comparable sensing systems as a technical owner.
• Demonstrated expertise in multi-modal sensor architecture and the physics governing detection performance.
• Experience owning system architecture and interface definition for sensing systems integrated with compute, autonomy, and vehicles.
• Proficiency in quantifying sensing performance, including detection/false alarm characterization and model validation against measured data.
• Mastery of sensing engineering fundamentals such as radiometry, link budgets, and atmospheric transmission effects.
• Experience with systems engineering rigor including requirements management, traceability, and technical performance measures.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a US Top Secret security clearance.
• Experience with learned perception in safety-relevant systems (preferred).
• Experience with embedded compute, SWaP-C budgeting, and environmental qualifications like MIL-STD-810 (preferred).
• Experience transitioning capabilities into delivery programs or participating in industry standards bodies (preferred).