Engineering Manager, UAS Simulation Platform

Firestorm; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 175,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision Plans

401(k) with company match

Equity grants

Unlimited PTO

Generous holiday calendar

Job summary

Firestorm is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Simulation team and build software, infrastructure, and tools for developing, testing, training, and demonstrating Firestorm aircraft. You will own an existing simulation capability and grow it into a reusable platform supporting interactive workflows, SIL/HIL testing, scenario orchestration, and demonstrations across aircraft and variants.

The role requires 8+ years in software/simulation, 3+ years leading teams, and hands-on experience

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software, simulation, robotics, or related engineering experience.
• 3+ years leading software engineering teams.
• U.S. person required due to ITAR regulations.
• Hands-on experience building or integrating simulation systems for aircraft, UAS, robotics, or other complex physical systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Simulation team — Own the team responsible for aircraft simulation infrastructure, tools, models, and integrations.
• Build the simulation platform — Develop a reusable simulation capability across aircraft, payloads, sensors, propulsion systems, and compute configurations.
• Enable software development and test — Provide interactive and headless environments used by aircraft software teams and automated SIL/HIL test systems.
• Build scenario orchestration — Develop tools for defining, configuring, executing, and replaying aircraft and mission scenarios.
• Scale simulation execution — Build infrastructure for repeatable local, CI, and distributed simulation runs.
• Integrate the aircraft stack — Connect flight software, autonomy, vehicle models, sensors, actuators, communications, and other aircraft systems into simulation.
• Support training and demonstrations — Build simulation capabilities that can be used for operator training, mission development, and customer demonstrations.
• Grow the team — Hire and develop engineers with strong simulation, software, and UAS fundamentals.

Skills

Leadership

C++

Python

Debugging

Automation

Systems thinking

Tools

Gazebo

JSBSim

AirSim

FlightGear

SIL/HIL tools

MAVLink/PX4-ArduPilot

Job description

Firestorm is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Simulation team and build software, infrastructure, and tools for developing, testing, training, and demonstrating Firestorm aircraft. You will own an existing simulation capability and grow it into a reusable platform supporting interactive workflows, SIL/HIL testing, scenario orchestration, and demonstrations across aircraft and variants.

The role requires 8+ years in software/simulation, 3+ years leading teams, and hands-on experience