Santa Clara, CA Flight Systems Engineer

SiFly Aviation, Inc.; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

SiFly Aviation, Inc. in Santa Clara, CA, is seeking a hands-on Flight Systems Engineer to design and run test campaigns, build instrumentation, and develop dashboards that reveal how weight, performance, and reliability evolve during flight.

You will tune PX4 configurations, analyze logs, and ensure data feeds back to the engineering team. This is an onsite, full-time role combining bench work and flight line activities.

Qualifications

• Hands-on flight test or systems test on real aircraft.
• Closed loop from controls systems or flight data back into autopilot parameters or code.
• Estimation and control fundamentals: coordinate frames, Kalman filtering and sensor fusion.
• Data analysis and scripting — Python or equivalent.
• Comfortable with instrumentation, harnessing, and debugging on the flight line.
• FAA Part 107 certification if not already certified.

Responsibilities

• Plan and execute test campaigns end to end — objectives, success criteria, test cards, instrumentation, and safety and site coordination.
• Choose the right validation modality for each question: simulation, log replay, hardware-in-the-loop, ground test, or flight.
• Tune and test changes to PX4 — parameters, control and estimation tuning, and configuration.
• Analyze flight logs and telemetry to diagnose issues across firmware, hardware, and companion computers.
• Build and maintain test infrastructure: benches, HIL setups, instrumentation, and data pipelines and dashboards behind them.
• Own progression from bench test to flight — including anomaly reports and configuration records.
• Generate flight test evidence for FAA submissions.
• Find and share AI-assisted approaches to log analysis and data reduction.

Skills

Flight test

Controls systems

Kalman filtering

Sensor fusion

Python scripting

Data analysis

Automation and dashboards

FAA Part 107

Hands-on hardware

AI tooling

Tools

ROS 2

MAVSDK

Linux

DAQ

Job description

Flight Systems Engineering and Test

SiFly Aviation · Santa Clara, CA · Onsite · Full-time

At SiFly, we're building a new category of aircraft: vertical-takeoff, long-endurance drones that deliver helicopter-level performance at drone economics. After thousands of flight tests and years of engineering, our NDAA-compliant platform flies more than 2 hours in hover or 3 hours in forward flight on a single charge — matching the capability of traditional helicopters at a fraction of their cost and operational burden. We merge aerial robotics, perception, and onboard intelligence to cut complexity and minimize human intervention, and our unique approach to communications and networking unlocks remote operations from day one. It's an ambitious mission, and we're a small team that moves fast.

The role

We fly a lot – and are building methodical ways of turning data from flights into evolved control system decisions. You’ll design test flight campaigns for the questions we need to answer and develop instrumentation that produces trustworthy data. You’ll drive and develop dashboards that tell us whether weight, performance, and reliability are moving the right way.

You'll also be a large part of how we tune and validate changes to PX4 — configuration and code — and how the resulting data gets back to the engineers who need it.

What you'll do

• Plan and execute test campaigns end to end — objectives, success criteria, test cards, instrumentation, and safety and site coordination.
• Choose the right validation modality for each question: simulation, log replay, hardware-in-the-loop, ground test, or flight. Spend flight time on the highest-value learning.
• Tune and test changes to PX4 — parameters, control and estimation tuning, and configuration — and validate them in the air.
• Analyze flight logs and telemetry to diagnose issues across firmware, hardware, and companion computers.
• Build and maintain test infrastructure: benches, HIL setups, instrumentation, and the data pipelines and dashboards behind them.
• Own the progression from bench test, through integrated ground runs, to flight — and the anomaly reports and configuration records that make a campaign reconstructable.
• Generate the flight test evidence used in SiFly’s FAA submissions.
• Find, build, and share AI-assisted approaches to this work — log analysis, test data reduction, reporting — and bring the team along with what works.

What we’re looking for

• Hands-on flight test or systems test on real aircraft, manned or unmanned. You build test setups, not just operate them.
• You’ve closed the loop from controls systems or flight data back into autopilot parameters or code, repeatedly, on real equipment.
• Estimation and control fundamentals: coordinate frames, Kalman filtering and sensor fusion, PID analysis.
• Data analysis and scripting — Python or equivalent — for reducing test data into something people act on.
• Comfortable at the aircraft: instrumentation, harnessing, and debugging on the flight line.
• Ability to obtain and use FAA Part 107 certification if not already certified.
• First-principles thinking and a drive to understand the “why” behind traditional approaches to propulsion, power systems, and even radio technologies.
• This is a hands‑on job at a company that is still small. You'll be at the bench, in the shop, on the flight line, and sometimes at a customer site working out why a deployed system is misbehaving — alongside new product development.
• You use AI as a real tool

Nice to have

• Existing FAA Part 107 certification and real drone piloting or field-testing experience.
• Flight test instrumentation design — sensors, DAQ, wiring and installation for test.
• ROS 2, MAVSDK, Linux companion computers; safety risk management process for flight testing.

Details

• Onsite in Santa Clara, CA.
• Small team, high ownership, and real hardware in the building.