Principal Systems & Product Design Engineer (UAS/Autonomous Systems)

COLSA•Madison, AL

9d•Onsite

About The Position

COLSA is seeking a Principal Systems & Product Design Engineer to join its growing uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) team at its Madison, Alabama facility. The role serves as a technical bridge between Product Management and Engineering, translating operational needs into scalable product architectures, system requirements, and engineering execution through design, prototyping, and testing. The engineer works across aircraft, payloads, autonomy, networking, embedded software, and mission systems to establish the technical baseline for rapidly developing, fielding, and evolving mission-critical capabilities. Customers include state and federal civil agencies, law enforcement, and the Department of War.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage a multidisciplinary team of engineers.
Develop and apply advanced techniques to investigate and solve advanced system requirements and problems.
Design, develop, maintain, and support technical infrastructure, including network, hardware, database, and/or system software components.
Perform advanced technical planning, system integration, verification and validation, and evaluate alternatives.
Analyze and resolve difficult and complicated program support deficiencies.
Guide infrastructure configuration and support, ensuring quality and change-control standards are met.
Plan, conduct, and technically direct projects or major phases of significant projects.
Coordinate technical support staff efforts in performing assigned projects.
Conduct complex design and fielded-product performance investigations and tests.
Review literature, patents, and current practices relevant to assigned projects.
Review completion and implementation of system additions and/or enhancements and make recommendations to executive leadership.
Evaluate vendor capabilities to provide required products or services.