Senior Autonomous Flight Termination System Hardware Engineer

Why Castelion, Why Now

Castelion is moving incredibly fast to develop and deliver advanced defense systems at a time when execution matters more than ever. We believe focus and technical excellence are decisive advantages - and we are building a team that can deliver real capability, not just concepts.

This is a rare opportunity to join at an early stage, where your work will directly shape critical systems, influence major technical decisions, and have immediate, real-world impact.

Senior Autonomous Flight Termination System Hardware Engineer

We are seeking a Senior Autonomous Flight Termination System (AFTS) Hardware Engineer to design and deliver high-reliability flight safety electronics for Castelion's long-range hypersonic strike vehicles. This role is critical to ensuring safe, deterministic vehicle termination through robust, fault-tolerant hardware. You will work hands-on with multidisciplinary engineering teams to design, build, test, and validate pulsed power electronics and firing systems, with a focus on electronic safe and arm devices (ESADs) and related architectures in a fast-paced, hardware-driven environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop pulsed power electronics for flight termination and firing systems, including high-voltage energy storage, switching, and delivery circuits
• Lead the architecture and implementation of electronic safe and arm devices (ESADs) and related safety-critical hardware
• Develop robust initiation and firing circuits, ensuring deterministic performance, redundancy, and fault tolerance
• Work closely with avionics, GNC, flight software, and systems engineering teams to ensure seamless integration of AFTS hardware with vehicle systems
• Perform circuit-level and system-level modeling and analysis to validate performance, timing, and reliability under dynamic flight conditions
• Define and execute qualification, environmental, and flight test plans, translating results into system-level improvements
• Support hardware bring-up, integration, and test campaigns, including debugging, failure analysis, and root cause investigation
• Ensure compliance with safety, range, and mission assurance requirements for flight termination systems
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to best practices in high-reliability pulsed power and safety-critical electronics design
• Partner closely with program leadership to make technical trades aligned with mission success

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Electrical Engineering or related field
• 5+ years of experience designing and validating pulsed power, high-voltage, or firing system electronics for aerospace, defense, or similar high-reliability applications
• Strong background in energy storage, high-speed/high-current switching, and pulsed power circuit design