Principal Engineer, cUAS Lead, Omen

XYZ Venture Capital; Costa Mesa (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 292,000; Full time

Job summary

Anduril Industries is seeking a Principal Engineer to own Omen’s airborne counter-UAS effector payload from prototype to production. You will also build and lead a multidisciplinary team across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and test disciplines. You will design the payload, firing system, and steering hardware, while ensuring manufacturability and reliability.

Eligible to obtain an active U.S. Secret security clearance, you will travel ~25% for tests and demonstrations.

Qualifications

• 10+ years designing electromechanical hardware and bringing products to production.
• Strong engineering background in relevant disciplines.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams and hiring.

Responsibilities

• Own the counter-UAS effector payload end to end from prototype to production hardware.
• Design the effector and firing system, mounting, recoil, feed, and interlocks.
• Own steering hardware, actuators sizing, drives, and isolation for airframe loads.
• Manage the pointing error budget and validate range and tracking performance.
• Build and lead the team across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and test.
• Plan and run ground and flight tests, lead root-cause investigations.
• Take hardware to production with manufacturability, supplier engagement, and tests.

Skills

Leadership

Multidisciplinary teams

CAD

Pointing control

Vibration isolation

DFM

Test experience

Education

Mechanical Engineering

Mechatronics

Aerospace Engineering

Electrical Engineering

Tools

NX

SolidWorks

Job description

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting‑edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Maneuver Dominance team at Anduril develops operationally relevant, multi-asset autonomy. Omen is Anduril’s hover-to-cruise autonomous air vehicle (AAV) that packs the endurance, payload, and mission flexibility of much larger airplanes into a novel runway‑independent Group 3 platform. Omen can operate from ship decks, beaches, or remote island clearings, providing true runway independence and freedom of maneuver across defense and civilian domains. Omen is the first tail‑sitter aircraft with a mass‑production contract, with an order of 50 systems representing a decisive investment that anchors production and accelerates the development of future systems.

ABOUT THE JOB

Small drones are hard to hit. Hitting them from a moving aircraft is harder. We need a Principal Engineer to own Omen’s airborne counter-UAS effector payload end to end, and to build the team around it.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own the counter-UAS effector payload end to end, from first prototype to qualified production hardware.
• Design the effector and firing system. Mounting structure, recoil and impulse management, feed and cycling, safe and arm interlocks.
• Own the steering hardware. Size the actuators, gearing, and drives, and design the isolation that protects the airframe from firing loads and the effector from rotor wash.
• Hold the pointing error budget and know where every part of it goes.
• Select and evaluate the sensors that range and locate the target. Bench and flight characterization for range accuracy, latency, and track quality against small targets in clutter.
• Build and lead the team. Hire across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and test, set the technical bar, and establish how the team works.
• Set the payload roadmap, balancing near‑term demonstrations against the architecture that has to carry into production.
• Own payload interface control with the vehicle and mission system teams. Mounting and alignment, power and signal definitions, harnessing, time sync.
• Plan and run ground and flight test campaigns, including live range events, and lead the root‑cause work when results do not match prediction.
• Take it to production. Design for manufacturability, tolerance and reliability analysis, supplier selection, first article, acceptance test.
• Work safety and compliance on safe and arm architecture, range safety, and export control.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 10+ years designing electromechanical hardware, including at least one product you carried from concept to production
• Strong engineering background, ideally in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Aerospace, or Electrical Engineering
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams, including hiring
• Deep mechanical design capability: structures under high transient loads, precision mechanisms, tolerance stack‑ups, and joint design
• Experience sizing actuators for precision pointing, and a working grasp of the control bandwidth tradeoffs that come with it
• Experience with vibration and shock isolation, including isolator selection and the dynamic analysis behind it
• Experience selecting and characterizing ranging sensors. Radar, lidar, EO/IR, or laser rangefinders
• Hands‑on test experience, from rig design and instrumentation through the data analysis that closes a design question
• Experience taking hardware to production: DFM, supplier engagement, first article inspection, acceptance test
• Proficiency in CAD (NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent)
• Ability to travel about 25% with potential surges for test and demonstration events
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Direct experience with weapon, effector, launcher, or ordnance‑adjacent systems, including safe and arm design
• Counter‑UAS experience, whether engagement chains, fire control, or targeting small unmanned aircraft
• VTOL, tail‑sitter, or rotorcraft experience, and familiarity with the payload environment they create (vibration, EMI, rotor wash)
• Experience with stabilized pointing, gimbals, boresighting, or targeting chains
• Familiarity with fire control, including lead and ballistic solutions and sensor‑to‑effector latency
• Environmental qualification testing (MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461)
• Airworthiness experience with external stores
• MATLAB/Simulink, multibody dynamics, or FEA for transient structural loads
• Familiarity with ITAR/EAR as it applies to effector development
• C++ or Python for test automation and data analysis

US Salary Range

$220,000—$292,000 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 offer 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 included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top‑tier benefits for full‑time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.