Flight Operations Crew Chief

Icarus; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Meaningful equity

Daily lunch

Job summary

Icarus in El Segundo, California, is seeking a Flight Operations Crew Chief responsible for aircraft readiness and maintenance. You will prepare, inspect, and troubleshoot aircraft to ensure all are safe and ready to fly.

This role requires hands-on experience with aircraft, strong problem-solving skills, and a disciplined approach to documentation. The ideal candidate will thrive under pressure and be a reliable team member in fast-paced environments.

Icarus offers competitive salaries, meaningful equity, and a unique work culture focused on engineering excellence.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of hands-on aircraft, UAS, or RC maintenance experience, or equivalent military experience.
• Demonstrated ability to assemble, inspect, and maintain aircraft readiness.
• Willing to travel frequently to remote test sites across the world.

Responsibilities

• Assemble, prepare, and maintain aircraft to ensure readiness.
• Troubleshoot and resolve mechanical, electrical, and software issues.
• Document maintenance records and communicate findings to engineering.

Skills

Aircraft maintenance experience

Troubleshooting skills

Documentation discipline

Team collaboration

Education

FAA Part 107 certification

Tools

Linux command line familiarity

Tools management

Job description

The Flight Operations Crew Chief owns aircraft readiness. You assemble, prepare, inspect, and maintain our aircraft so they are safe and ready every time they go to the line. You are the person the team trusts to say the aircraft is ready to fly. When something is wrong with the airframe, you are the one who finds it and fixes it.

Mission

Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.

What you’ll do

Prepare the aircraft

• Assemble, configure, and prepare aircraft for flight, including mechanical assembly, avionics connections, and payload setup.
• Run preflight inspections and checklists, and make the call on aircraft readiness.
• Set up and verify ground support equipment, power, and the physical test site.
• Own the configuration and condition of the aircraft from the hangar to the line.

Maintain and troubleshoot

• Diagnose and fix mechanical, electrical, and software issues on the aircraft in the field and in the hangar.
• Perform scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, repairs, and replacements.
• Refurbish and reset the aircraft between flights and prepare it for the next sortie.
• Maintain positive control of tools and hardware to keep the aircraft safe.
• Follow directions and intent from engineering personnel to make required adjustments on the fly.

Document and improve

• Keep accurate maintenance records, squawks, and configuration logs.
• Feed findings back to engineering to drive the next iteration of the aircraft.
• Build and improve the standard operating procedures that make aircraft readiness repeatable and safe.

What we’re looking for

• 3+ years of hands‑on aircraft, UAS, or RC maintenance experience, or equivalent military experience as a maintainer or crew chief.
• Holds or willing to quickly obtain FAA Part 107 certification.
• Demonstrated ability to assemble, inspect, maintain, and sign off on an aircraft's readiness.
• Strong hands‑on troubleshooting across mechanical, electrical, and software systems.
• Disciplined approach to checklists, documentation, and configuration control.
• Sound judgement on airworthiness and a willingness to ground an aircraft that is not ready.
• Comfort taking direction from engineers and translating it into a flight‑ready aircraft.
• Willingness to travel frequently to remote test sites across the world.
• High trust, extreme ownership, no ego.

Bonus

• FAA Airframe and Powerplant license or military aviation maintenance background.
• Familiarity with the Linux command line for debugging and troubleshooting.
• Experience with developmental flight test or build‑up test programs.
• Background building RC or UAS aircraft (SAE Aero, Design Build Fly, or serious hobbyist).
• Aviation‑adjacent military specialty with "air sense" (JTAC, CCT, etc).
• Experience operating in austere or remote field environments.

Why Icarus

• Meaningful equity
• Top market salary and bonuses
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
• Small team, massive responsibility
• High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
• Dream desk setup
• Daily lunch

This is not a normal flight ops job

• We are pioneers, not corporate managers. Icarus deliberately optimizes for a high signal (engineers) to noise (management) ratio, where engineering, flight, and execution matter more than process, politics, or management overhead.
• You will work side by side with engineers, not behind a wall from them. You will own aircraft readiness end to end. Build it up. Inspect it. Fix it. Hand it off ready to fly.
• We expect full extreme ownership. This is a high-trust, no‑BS team, and everyone pulls their weight, especially in the field.
• We want operators, not bystanders. No fake projects. No watching others work. Just real aircraft, real test sites, and real flight.
• You must thrive under pressure, learn fast, and produce in the field. We move fast. We go to Mojave at 4 am in the morning. We expect results and an obsession with quality and speed.
• You will be the person the team trusts to say the aircraft is ready. If you want the thing you prepared to climb to 60,000 ft and come home, this is it.

Hiring process

• Phone screen
• Hands‑on readiness and troubleshooting assessment
• Meet the flight and engineering team in‑person

US salary range

$90,000 - $150,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are considered part of Icarus' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.