Manufacturing Engineer

Icarus; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Meaningful equity

Top market salary and bonuses

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Factory in El Segundo

Real ownership, real hardware, real飞行

Job summary

Icarus, founded to reclaim the Stratosphere, is building solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft and provide persistent, affordable presence from the sky. This role owns the manufacturing and production of flight hardware from prototype through low-rate and scaled production, while partnering with design engineers to ensure hardware is manufacturable and reliable.

Based in El Segundo, you will drive build processes, develop tooling and quality checks, and support integration, testing, and

Qualifications

• 1+ years working as a manufacturing, production, or build engineer on real hardware.
• Hands-on experience building mechanical, electrical, or aerospace systems.
• Strong intuition for tolerances, processes, and how things actually get built.
• Experience working closely with design engineering teams.
• Ability to move fast, own outcomes, and solve problems on the factory floor.

Responsibilities

• Own the manufacturing and production of flight hardware from prototype through low-rate and scaled production.
• Design and improve build processes for airframes, avionics, power systems, and integration.
• Develop tooling, fixtures, work instructions, and quality checks that enable speed and repeatability.
• Partner with design engineers to make hardware more manufacturable, reliable, and scalable.
• Drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions on build and test issues.
• Support integration, environmental testing, and flight operations.
• Help stand up production capabilities inside our El Segundo factory.

Skills

Manufacturing engineer

Hands-on hardware

Tolerance/process intuition

Collaboration with design

Fast-paced ownership

Job description

Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the Forgotten Frontier and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere.

Mission

Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.

What you’ll do

• Own the manufacturing and production of flight hardware from prototype through low-rate and scaled production
• Design and improve build processes for airframes, avionics, power systems, and integration
• Develop tooling, fixtures, work instructions, and quality checks that enable speed and repeatability
• Partner with design engineers to make hardware more manufacturable, reliable, and scalable
• Drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions on build and test issues
• Support integration, environmental testing, and flight operations
• Help stand up production capabilities inside our El Segundo factory

What we’re looking for

• 1+ years working as a manufacturing, production, or build engineer on real hardware
• Hands-on experience building mechanical, electrical, or aerospace systems
• Strong intuition for tolerances, processes, and how things actually get built
• Experience working closely with design engineering teams
• Ability to move fast, own outcomes, and solve problems on the factory floor
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments

Why Icarus

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

This is not a normal engineering 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 the CEO and a small team of world-class builders. You will own your subsystem end to end. Design it. Build it. Break it. Fix it. Validate it in the desert. Fly it. Then do it again, faster
• We expect full extreme ownership. This is a high-trust, no-BS team, and everyone pulls their weight
• We are hiring across the stack: mechanical, aerodynamics, RF, GNC, electrical, avionics, power electronics, energy storage, software, and systems
• We want builders. No hand-holding. No fluff. No fake projects. No slide decks. No sitting in meetings all day. Just raw engineering, real hardware, and real flight
• You must thrive under pressure, learn fast, troubleshoot in the field, and push hardware to its limits. 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 a core executor of flight systems, taking them from concept to reality and driving rapid iteration loops. You will work across design, integration, testing, and flight. If you want real ownership, real hardware, and real flight milestones, this is it.

Hiring process

• Technical interview
• One-on-one with CEO
• Meet the team in-person

US salary range

$100,000 - $160,000 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.