Lab & Integration Lead

Anduril • Costa Mesa, CA

3d

About The Position

The Lab & Integration Lead is the technical lead for the integration lab fleet supporting Anduril’s flagship autonomous air vehicle. The fleet includes software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop rigs for vehicle management, flight controls, and mission systems, as well as an iron bird with hydraulics, loaded actuation, and power. The labs are being built and brought online on a schedule tied to the program’s first-flight path, and will support software releases through production lots.

This is a hands-on player-coach role with design authority. The lead works at the bench, sets and reviews rig designs, and leads a small team of lab and integration engineers. Build, operation, and sustainment teams execute the hardware; software V&V runs qualification tests; Test owns test execution; and functional teams own their LRUs. The lead owns the lab as a system, including its architecture, configuration, capacity, and readiness, and develops practices that can be reused by future programs.

Requirements

• B.S. in electrical, computer, aerospace, or mechanical engineering, or a similar technical field.
• At least 7 years designing, building, operating, or integrating SIL, HIL, iron-bird, or avionics integration labs for aircraft, missiles, or space systems, including at least 2 years as technical lead for a lab or rig team.
• Hands-on avionics and electrical integration experience, including reading and reviewing harness drawings and pin-to-pins, MIL-DTL-38999-class connectors, safe-to-mate, aircraft power distribution, and bench instrumentation such as oscilloscopes, DMMs, breakout boxes, and bus analyzers.
• Working knowledge of avionics data buses and networks such as Ethernet, MIL-STD-1553, ARINC 429, RS-422/485, and CAN, and time synchronization such as PTP and IRIG.
• Experience with real-time HITL host and simulation environments, plant models, I/O and data-acquisition hardware, and data recording.
• Experience maintaining configuration control of test assets and producing as-run records for formal qualification or for-record testing.
• Proficiency in Linux and Python or similar scripting for lab automation and data analysis.
• Ability to plan lab capacity, track long-lead procurement against an integrated master schedule, and raise problems early enough to act.
• Clear, direct communication with software, hardware, test, and program leads, including the ability to run a working forum that closes decisions.
• Currently holds an active U.S. Secret security clearance and is able to obtain and maintain Top Secret clearance.

Nice To Haves

• Iron bird experience, including hydraulic systems, loaded actuation, flight controls, or starter-generator/power loading.
• Mission systems integration experience with EO/IR, electronic warfare, datalinks, crypto and key management, and C2 ground segments.
• Classified lab accreditation experience, including RMF/ATO and JSIG, and familiarity with TEMPEST and secure lab design.
• Experience standing up a multi-rig lab from scratch with several builds in progress simultaneously.
• Lab automation and continuous integration on HIL rigs, including automated regression, test frameworks, and results dashboards.
• Familiarity with MIL-STD-704, MIL-STD-461, and linking verification evidence to a system model.
• Flight test or ground test support experience on a developmental aircraft program.

Responsibilities

• Own and baseline the lab architecture, including rig block diagrams, lab network, HITL host and simulation, data recording, and rig interfaces.
• Provide design oversight for every rig build, reviewing chassis, rack, power, harness, and hydraulic interface designs before material release.
• Lead hands-on rig bring-up, including safe-to-mate, power-on and BIT, LRU checkout, and host/simulation reference-scenario runs; debug issues across hardware, harness, network, and software boundaries and teach the team to do the same.
• Define and maintain a rig operational-readiness checklist, run readiness reviews before rigs are declared operational, and pre-define fallback configurations and triggers for their use.
• Maintain configuration control for each rig, including LRU part and serial numbers, software and firmware versions, harness revisions, and simulation and model versions; audit configurations before formal runs and record as-tested configurations.
• Model monthly rig-hours demanded and available; build and run an integrated rig-by-week schedule across software qualification, mission systems integration, iron bird integration, and flight-test support; and run the weekly Lab & Integration board to resolve conflicts and close decisions.
• Own the LRU allocation plan for engineering, qualification, and flight LRUs, in agreement with avionics and mission systems teams, and keep allocations current as deliveries change.
• Define rig fidelity, simulation and model validation approaches, and test data capture standards; work with Platform Verification & Readiness to allocate verification among lab, aircraft, and analysis and ensure lab evidence is traceable to requirements with stated limitations.
• Set integration entry and exit criteria for each software release; run daily integration triage across software, avionics, mission systems, and lab issues; drive discrepancy reports to closure; and require regression after hardware or software changes.
• Contribute to the Master Integrated Test Plan and per-release integration test plans.
• Own lab hazard analysis with System Safety, the lab network and cyber accreditation path with Product Security, and classified lab space and accreditation with Security.
• Assess rig changes required for each new hardware lot and own sustainment, spares, calibration, obsolescence, and retirement planning; reset the capacity model at each production-lot gate.
• Hire, mentor, and lead lab and integration engineers and technicians; set standards, work instructions, and on-call norms; and foster engineering ownership.
• Create a reusable PEI lab and integration playbook covering strategy, architecture, build, bring-up, integration, closure, and sustainment gates.

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, described as comprehensive and competitive and available at little to no cost to employees.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior