Engineering Lead, Air Defense U.S. Air Force Portfolio

Anduril • Irvine, CA

13h

About The Position

Anduril’s Air Defense team develops, integrates, and fields autonomous systems to find, track, and defeat aerial threats while keeping operators in control of engagement decisions. Its portfolio combines Roadrunner, Sentry, Anvil, Pulsar, and Wisp with existing and third-party sensors and effectors through Lattice.

The Engineering Lead is responsible for the technical direction and baseline across Anduril’s U.S. Air Force air defense portfolio. The portfolio includes programs of record, multi-year IDIQs, sustainment, permanent installation defense, deployable kits, relocatable passive detection, and work in special access environments. The role spans architecture, interfaces, networks, accreditation scope, and verification across multiple programs, resolving technical issues that cross program ownership.

The position balances technical planning and customer engagement with hands-on field work. It defines and maintains delivered configurations, integrates systems and equipment owned by partners or the government, determines verification and environmental qualification approaches, and decides whether configurations are ready to ship. When a fielded site degrades, the lead reproduces the issue using real hardware and data, directs recovery under time pressure, and feeds findings back into the product. The role also translates customer requirements into technical scope, contributes proposal technical content and basis of estimate, and establishes repeatable engineering standards for issues shared across deployments.

Requirements

• Engineering, science, or other technical degree, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least 8 years of systems or engineering experience on fielded systems.
• End-to-end accountability for whether a delivered system worked at the site, beyond producing design artifacts.
• Experience owning architecture, interfaces, and verification for a delivered capability or program technical scope.
• Experience integrating third-party and government-furnished hardware and software into a system for which the candidate was accountable.
• Ability to define and justify verification coverage for a full scope.
• Ability to negotiate requirements, deviations, and acceptance with customer technical representatives and write a credible basis of estimate.
• Experience reproducing field failures independently using real hardware and data, and leading recovery at a fielded site under time pressure.
• Ability to set technical direction for a small number of engineers without managing them.
• Willingness to travel up to 25% of the time.
• Eligibility to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance.

Nice To Haves

• Active Top Secret clearance or current or prior special access program read-on.
• Experience delivering counter-UAS, air defense, or installation defense capability to a U.S. Air Force customer.
• Depth in one or more of radar, passive RF detection, electro-optical and infrared sensors, effector integration, tactical networking, tactical data links, or command and control software.
• Experience with accreditation and authorization for a fielded system, including STIG compliance, offline or disconnected operation, and government-approved data transfer.
• Experience standardizing deployment networking or configuration management across multiple sites.
• Experience with environmental qualification for extreme cold or other demanding operating environments.
• Prior military or government service in an air defense, flight test, or special operations organization.

Responsibilities

• Own and maintain the technical baseline for delivered portfolio configurations, including architecture, interfaces, and verification approach.
• Own applicable certification and accreditation scope in coordination with responsible teams.
• Integrate Anduril systems with partner command and control, existing base equipment, government-furnished equipment, third-party sensors and effectors, and tactical data links.
• Negotiate underspecified integration scope with partners or program offices and communicate integration readiness, engineering needs, and technical limitations to Anduril.
• Define verification and environmental qualification approaches and justify the planned test coverage.
• Determine whether configurations are ready to ship.
• Reproduce field failures using real hardware and data, lead site recovery under time pressure, and incorporate lessons into the product.
• Represent the engineering position with customers and in pursuits; translate operational requirements into executable technical scope and write proposal technical content and basis of estimate.
• Set shared technical standards for recurring cross-program problems, including deployment networking.
• Set technical direction for a small number of engineers without managing them.
• Travel up to 25% of the time.

Benefits

• Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers and are considered part of total compensation.
• Top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including a comprehensive, competitive benefits package available at little to no cost to employees.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed