Test Instrumentation Engineer

Mach Industries•Huntington Beach, CA

3d•$105,000 - $180,000•Onsite

About The Position

Mach Industries is seeking a Test Instrumentation Engineer to own the external data capture architecture for flight tests across our autonomous UAS platforms. This role is responsible for the systems around the vehicle that tell us what actually happened during a test, including high-speed video, drone footage, external sensors, range instrumentation, and precise time synchronization between those sources and vehicle telemetry. This is a hands-on field engineering role for someone who can design, deploy, troubleshoot, and validate multi-source capture systems in dynamic range environments. You will support the full test lifecycle, including planning, readiness reviews, dry runs, day-of-test execution, and post-test data handoff. Because Mach develops low-cost, rapidly iterated UAS platforms, external instrumentation is often critical to failure analysis and engineering decision-making. In some cases, the external dataset becomes the most important record of the event. Success in this role requires technical judgment, discipline under field conditions, and the ability to turn raw test capture into trusted engineering evidence on a fast development cadence.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, systems engineering, or another relevant technical discipline, or equivalent hands-on experience.
3+ years of experience with flight test instrumentation, field data capture, camera systems, sensor integration, or similar live-test technical operations.
Experience with high-speed video systems and or drone-based capture in outdoor operational environments.
Working knowledge of time synchronization across multiple independent data sources, including timecode, GPS-based sync, hardware triggers, or related methods.
Experience correlating external capture data with telemetry or ground-control-system logs.
Ability to set up, calibrate, and troubleshoot capture equipment and sensors in the field.
Strong attention to detail and data traceability.
Ability to make sound technical decisions under time pressure.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Ability to travel frequently and support multi-day field deployments.
Ability to meet export-control, security, and customer-access requirements associated with the role.

Nice To Haves

FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate.
Experience supporting UAS, defense, or aerospace flight test programs.
Familiarity with Mission Planner, QGroundControl, or similar ground-control software.
Experience with photogrammetry, motion tracking, or post-test reconstruction workflows.
Experience scripting in Python or Bash for data handling, validation, or automation.
Familiarity with telemetry files and RF communications systems used in test environments.
Experience working on private ranges, DoD ranges, or other controlled test environments.
Experience supporting rapid hardware iteration and fast post-test turnaround cycles.

Responsibilities

Plan and deploy external data capture systems for flight tests, including high-speed cameras, drone-based footage, and ground-based sensors.
Design and maintain time-sync architecture across external capture systems and vehicle telemetry sources.
Align video, sensor, and instrumentation outputs with ground-control and Mavlink telemetry logs.
Support the full test workflow, including readiness reviews, dry runs, test-day execution, and post-test review.
Coordinate with flight operations, manufacturing and engineering teams as well as vendors, and range personnel to ensure instrumentation supports test objectives.
Capture safety-critical and engineering-critical events such as launch behavior, separation events, anomaly behavior, flight-path deviations, and impact sequences.
Build and maintain deployment-ready field kits for external instrumentation, including cameras, mounts, sync hardware, storage media, power systems, and protective equipment.
Organize, label, and package datasets so engineering teams can quickly use them for analysis without ambiguity or rework.
Improve capture procedures, sync methods, equipment standards, and documentation based on field experience.
Support flight testing at private and DoD ranges, including multi-day deployments and occasional travel outside home base.