Flight Test Instrumentation & Data Engineer

Dufour Aerospace AG; Dübendorf; On-site; CHF 110,000 - 155,000; Full time

Job summary

Dufour Aerospace AG in Switzerland seeks a Flight Test Instrumentation & Data Engineer to own end-to-end flight data handling from onboard sensors to final processing tools, ensuring reliable, standardized workflows for engineering teams.

You will collaborate across hardware, software, and integration teams, maintain sensor configurations, calibrations, and metadata, and optimize data access and storage for high-frequency datasets.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a relevant technical field.
• 3+ years of professional experience in test instrumentation, DAQ, or sensor-to-database time-series data engineering.
• Hands-on experience with aircraft/vehicle sensor installations, DAQ hardware, and telemetry pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Manage the data pipeline from sensors and DAQ to telemetry and storage systems.
• Maintain sensor configuration, calibration records, and metadata for accurate signals.
• Collaborate with hardware, software and integration teams to define sensor requirements and telemetry bandwidth.
• Troubleshoot data anomalies at DAQ and sensor level before propagation.
• Maintain reliable extraction of flight data from InfluxDB and develop local data structures.
• Optimize access to large datasets and implement efficient local storage solutions.
• Support future improvements to flight data architecture as needs evolve.
• Maintain derived datasets and ensure timing synchronization and data quality.
• Provide fast data previews for rapid post-flight reviews and enable high-frequency data access.
• Support custom querying of processed datasets.

Skills

Cross-functional communication

Detail-oriented

Adaptability

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, Data Engineering, or related field

Tools

Python

MATLAB

InfluxDB

Grafana

Git

CI/CD

CAN bus

ARINC 429

MIL-STD-1553

Ethernet/UDP

HDF5

Parquet

IRIG 106

Job description

The Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) & Data Engineer will be responsible for the end-to-end handling, quality assurance, accessibility, and long-term management of all flight data. The primary objective is to ensure that full-aircraft data, from the onboard sensors and DAQ systems to the final processing tools, is available to every engineering team through a reliable, efficient, and standardized workflow.

Tasks

Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) & DAQ Pipeline

• Manage the data pipeline from the physical sensor and Data Acquisition (DAQ) level for the full aircraft, ensuring seamless and accurate transmission into the telemetry and storage systems.
• Maintain sensor configuration, calibration records, and metadata to guarantee the accurate translation of raw physical signals into usable engineering units.
• Collaborate with hardware, software and integration teams to define sensor requirements, DAQ architectures, scaling, and telemetry bandwidth allocations.
• Troubleshoot and resolve data anomalies at the DAQ and sensor level (e.g., signal noise, dropouts, faulty scaling) before they propagate into downstream databases.

Data Infrastructure & Accessibility

• Maintain reliable extraction of flight data from InfluxDB.
• Develop and maintain standardized local data structures for analysis, plotting, and visualization.
• Optimize access to large flight datasets while minimizing CPU and memory usage.
• Design and maintain an efficient local storage solution for processed flight data.
• Support future improvements to the flight data architecture as storage requirements, sensor counts, and analysis needs continue to evolve.

Data Quality & Analysis Support

• Maintain derived datasets to ensure common calculations and signals are shared consistently across teams.
• Ensure strict timing synchronization and timestamp accuracy across all recorded data, from the sensor acquisition point to the database.
• Monitor data quality, completeness, and integrity throughout the entire pipeline.
• Provide fast data previews for rapid post-flight reviews.
• Enable efficient access to high-frequency sensor data for detailed engineering investigations.
• Support custom querying of processed datasets.

Requirements

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, Data Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 3+ years of professional experience in test instrumentation, data acquisition (DAQ), or sensor-to-database time-series data engineering (aerospace, automotive, or racing/motorsports preferred).
• Hands-on experience working directly with physical aircraft/vehicle sensor installations, DAQ hardware, and telemetry pipelines.

Technical & Domain Expertise

1. Hardware, Sensors & DAQ Architecture

• Strong understanding of physical sensors (e.g., strain gauges, accelerometers, thermocouples, pressure transducers, RTDs, LVDTs, pitot-static tubes).
• Demonstrated knowledge of signal conditioning, sampling rate selection, anti-aliasing filtering, scaling, and sensor calibration procedures.

2. Data Infrastructure & Software Development

• Proficient in Python or MATLAB for data analysis, automated data processing, and visualization library development (e.g., Pandas, NumPy, SciPy).
• Experience working with time-series databases, specifically InfluxDB (or similar engines), including writing efficient queries (Flux/InfluxQL) and data retrieval pipelines.
• Solid foundation in data structures and memory/CPU optimization when handling high-memory high-frequency continuous time-series datasets.

3. Data Integrity & Signal Processing

• Experience with timestamping and clock synchronization protocols across distributed DAQ hardware and storage nodes.
• Knowledge of basic digital signal processing (DSP) concepts (filtering, FFT, spectral analysis, decimation/resampling).

Soft Skills & Work Style

• Cross-functional communication: Ability to bridge the gap between hardware technicians, flight physics/aerodynamics engineers, and software teams.
• Detail-oriented mindset: Uncompromising rigor regarding calibration metadata, unit conversions, and data accuracy.
• Adaptability: Drive to continuously improve data infrastructure as aircraft sensor counts, test frequencies, and analytical needs expand.

Preferred / Bonus Qualifications

• Knowledge of standard FAA / EASA flight test instrumentation requirements or military flight test standards (e.g. IRIG 106).
• Familiarity with dashboarding tools (e.g., Grafana) for rapid post-flight previews and real-time telemetry display.
• Experience with version control systems (Git) and CI/CD pipelines for internal engineering tool distribution.
• Direct experience with DAQ systems and digital bus protocols (CAN bus, ARINC 429, MIL-STD-1553, Ethernet/UDP, PCM).
• Familiarity with binary flight data formats (e.g., IRIG 106 Chapter 10/11, MDF/MF4, HDF5, Parquet, or custom binary loggers).
• Experience with performing on-aircraft hardware troubleshooting (e.g., tracking down ground loops, signal noise, dropouts, or faulty scaling).