Senior UAS Flight Test Engineer

Alto Cirra; Salt Lake City (UT); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

15 paid vacation days

10 paid holidays

5 paid sick days

75% employer medical premiums

Work equipment provided

Travel reimbursement

Professional development budget $1,500

Job summary

Alto Cirra seeks a lead test engineer to plan ground and flight-test campaigns for aircraft and payload integrations, delivering documented evidence for safety reviews. The role emphasizes traceability, data-driven root-cause analysis, and close collaboration with flight operations and safety teams.

Based at our Salt Lake City headquarters with up to 25% travel, this on-site role requires 5+ years in aircraft/robotics hardware testing and strong skills in Python and MATLAB for data analysis.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of aircraft, robotics or complex hardware test experience.
• Experience defining test objectives, instrumentation, pass/fail criteria and traceable reports.
• Working knowledge of flight dynamics, sensors, telemetry and systems integration.
• Ability to analyze test data using Python, MATLAB or comparable tools.

Responsibilities

• Plan ground and flight-test campaigns with defined objectives, procedures and pass/fail criteria.
• Validate aircraft, payload and software integrations and trace issues to root cause.
• Produce test reports and evidence that engineering and safety reviewers can rely on.
• Work with flight operations and safety on test readiness reviews.
• Improve test tooling, instrumentation and data capture.

Skills

Aircraft test experience

Robotics test experience

Complex hardware testing

Test planning & execution

Tools

Python

MATLAB

Job description

Lead how our aircraft and payload integrations are validated, from ground tests to planned flight tests, with clear, documented evidence.

Team Engineering

Location Salt Lake City, Utah · Headquarters

Employment type Full-time employee, normally 40 hours per week.

Annual base salary USD $130,000–$170,000

Compensation No equity or bonus is included in this package. Compensation within the range will reflect relevant experience and role scope.

Work arrangement On-site at headquarters and approved field locations.

Travel Up to 25% travel for test campaigns.

Benefits

• 15 paid vacation days
• 10 paid company holidays
• 5 paid sick days
• employer contribution of 75% of employee-only medical/dental/vision premiums
• required work equipment
• approved business travel reimbursement
• a $1,500 annual professional-development budget

Relocation policy Applicants willing to relocate are welcome; relocation expenses are not included.

Visa policy Employment visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

About Alto Cirra

Alto Cirra develops drone-deployed cloud seeding technology and data-backed program capabilities for ski resorts, water districts and watersheds. Our headquarters is in Salt Lake City.

This planned 2027 headquarters role supports our next phase of development. Hiring dates will be agreed individually; regional deployment plans do not represent confirmed local bases or flight authorizations.

Responsibilities

• Plan ground and flight-test campaigns with defined objectives, procedures and pass/fail criteria.
• Validate aircraft, payload and software integrations and trace issues to root cause.
• Produce test reports and evidence that engineering and safety reviewers can rely on.
• Work with flight operations and safety on test readiness reviews.
• Improve test tooling, instrumentation and data capture.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of aircraft, robotics or complex hardware test experience, or equivalent demonstrated capability.
• Experience defining test objectives, instrumentation, pass/fail criteria and traceable reports.
• Working knowledge of flight dynamics, sensors, telemetry and systems integration.
• Ability to analyze test data using Python, MATLAB or comparable tools.

Preferred experience

PX4 or ArduPilot, hardware-in-the-loop simulation and test automation; FAA Part 107 certification when pilot duties are assigned.

Core skills

Python, Matlab.