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Anduril Industries is seeking an Engineering Lead to own the technical baseline for the U.S. Air Force Air Defense portfolio. This role spans multiple concurrent work streams: permanent base installations under government accreditation, rapidly deployable kits for short-notice operations, passive detection systems extending the kill chain into theater air pictures, and special access programs with disclosure constraints.
You will be the engineering lead across all portfolio configurations, responsible for architecture, interfaces to Anduril and third-party sensors/effectors, underlying networks, accreditation scope, and verification approaches. You settle technical questions that fall between individual program owners and hold the picture that spans them.
Key responsibilities include:
**Own the technical baseline.** Define and maintain architecture, interface sets, and verification approaches for delivered configurations. Set baselines for each and update them based on field evidence. Own certification and accreditation scope, working with responsible teams.
**Integrate systems you do not own.** Most connections belong to others: base equipment, partner command and control, government-furnished equipment, third-party sensors/effectors via Lattice SDK, and tactical data links. Negotiate underspecified scope directly with partners or program offices. Provide clear accounts of what integrates cleanly, what needs engineering sprints, and what is not technically ready.
**Own whether it works at the site.** Define verification and environmental qualification approaches. Make the call on configuration readiness. When fielded sites degrade, reproduce failures on real hardware and real data, lead recovery under time pressure, and feed learnings back into the product.
**Carry the engineering position with customer and in pursuits.** Be the engineer the portfolio brings when customers ask detailed questions. Translate operational requirements into executable technical scope, write technical content and basis of estimate for proposals, and plainly state when commitments outrun engineering support.
**Solve recurring problems across programs.** These programs share hardware, software baselines, and people. Define standards the next deployment builds against instead of solving per-site (e.g., deployment networking).
The role is broad by design. A typical week might involve reconciling conflicting environmental requirements, defining partner command-and-control interfaces, writing proposal technical content, or troubleshooting on a flightline. The portfolio is growing faster than its engineering bench, so you carry real latitude over where engineering effort goes.
**REQUIREMENTS:**
- Engineering, science, or other technical degree, or equivalent practical experience
- 8+ years of systems or engineering experience on fielded systems
- End-to-end accountability for whether a delivered system actually worked at the site, not only for producing design artifacts
- Owned the architecture, interface set, and verification approach for a delivered capability or program's technical scope
- Experience integrating third-party and government-furnished hardware and software into a system you were accountable for
- Ability to define the verification approach for a full scope and explain why planned coverage is sufficient
- Ability to negotiate requirements, deviations, and acceptance directly with a customer's technical representatives, and to write a credible basis of estimate
- Works from real hardware and real data: reproduces field failures independently before proposing a fix, and has run 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
**PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:**
- 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
