Head of Flight Test Engineering

An innovative autonomous aviation company has engaged us to find a Head of Flight Test Engineering to lead and scale the validation of next-generation autonomous aircraft operating in real-world environments.

This is a highly technical engineering leadership role focused on managing large-scale test operations, developing smarter validation strategies, and building the infrastructure needed to safely scale autonomous technology. The team is looking for someone who can go beyond traditional flight-test operations — someone who can manage multiple test campaigns across different hardware and software configurations, improve test coverage, reduce unnecessary flight testing, and determine when simulation, bench testing, or real-world testing is the right approach.

While aerospace and UAS experience is highly valued, they’re also open to strong engineering leaders from autonomous vehicles, robotics, automotive, and other safety-critical industries. Experience with large-scale vehicle testing, wireless communications, navigation systems, perception, motion planning, and complex hardware-software integration can be highly relevant, particularly for those who have developed creative ways to validate complex systems under challenging real-world conditions.

A bit about the company:

• Strategic Growth Stage: The company is scaling its autonomous delivery platform globally and expanding its engineering organization to support commercial operations. This is an opportunity to join a high-performing team building technology that is already making a real-world impact while helping shape the future of autonomous aviation.

• Mission-Driven Innovation: The company is redefining logistics by building autonomous aircraft and intelligent delivery networks capable of transporting critical goods safely and efficiently. Their technology combines advanced robotics, autonomy, software, and aviation to solve complex transportation challenges at scale.

• Career Opportunities: This is an opportunity to lead a world-class flight test organization while remaining deeply technical. You'll mentor and grow an experienced engineering team while contributing hands-on to test architecture, automation, systems validation, safety assessments, and release decisions. The role offers exceptional exposure across autonomous systems, aerospace engineering, robotics, software, operations, and regulatory compliance.

We're looking for someone who has:

• Extensive experience designing, developing, validating, or testing complex autonomous, robotic, aerospace, automotive, or other safety-critical systems.

• Experience managing large-scale test operations or campaigns, coordinating multiple test plans, teams, operators, hardware configurations, and software releases in parallel.

• Strong systems engineering fundamentals and the ability to develop test strategies that cover objectives, planning, execution, data analysis, and release recommendations.

• Experience building or improving test automation, validation infrastructure, test rigs, data pipelines, or representative test environments that reduce manual effort and improve test coverage.

• An understanding of how to validate complex hardware-software systems, including areas such as wireless and cellular communications, Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS/GNSS navigation, camera-based perception, autonomous decision-making, motors, battery systems, and power distribution.

• Experience with simulation and ground testing, including the ability to identify what can be validated through simulation or bench testing and what requires real-world testing.

• Aerospace/UAS or flight-test experience is strongly preferred, but candidates from autonomous vehicles, automotive, robotics, navigation, wireless communications, or other complex systems industries may be a strong fit if they bring relevant test leadership and systems expertise

If this role is of interest to you, please apply with your current resume. We will review your background and reach out to schedule an initial call.