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Salary: USD 175,000 - 220,000 / annual
Firestorm is building expeditionary defense manufacturing and autonomous systems, focusing on mission-adaptable aerial systems and deployable manufacturing infrastructure. The company develops modular unmanned aircraft (UAS) and xCell, a deployable microfactory, designed to make defense systems rapidly deployable, adaptable, and producible at the point of need.
As Engineering Manager of the Simulation team, you will lead a team responsible for aircraft simulation infrastructure, tools, models, and integrations. You will own and grow an existing simulation capability into a reusable UAS simulation platform that supports interactive developer workflows, automated SIL/HIL testing, scenario orchestration, training, and mission demonstrations across Firestorm aircraft and their variants.
Key responsibilities include:
- Leading the Simulation team and hiring/developing engineers with strong simulation, software, and UAS fundamentals
- Building a reusable simulation platform across aircraft, payloads, sensors, propulsion systems, and compute configurations
- Providing interactive and headless simulation environments for aircraft software teams and automated test systems
- Developing tools for defining, configuring, executing, and replaying aircraft and mission scenarios
- Building infrastructure for repeatable local, CI, and distributed simulation runs
- Integrating the full aircraft stack (flight software, autonomy, vehicle models, sensors, actuators, communications)
- Supporting operator training, mission development, and customer demonstrations through simulation capabilities
The role is based in San Diego, CA, with relocation assistance available for candidates willing to relocate. This is a full-time, in-office position.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 8+ years of software, simulation, robotics, or related engineering experience
- 3+ years leading software engineering teams
- U.S. person required due to ITAR regulations (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or eligible for required authorizations)
- Hands-on experience building or integrating simulation systems for aircraft, UAS, robotics, or other complex physical systems
- Experience with simulation frameworks such as Gazebo, JSBSim, AirSim, or FlightGear
- Strong C++ and Python or similar software engineering experience
- Experience with SIL, HIL, or other integrated simulation environments
- Experience integrating flight software, vehicle models, sensors, actuators, or hardware interfaces into simulation
- Strong skills in build, packaging, deployment, and distribution of applications across multiple operating systems
- Experience building automated, reproducible simulation or test environments
- Demonstrated ability to debug complex problems across simulation, software, networking, and hardware boundaries
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience with PX4, ArduPilot, MAVLink, or similar vehicle software platforms
- Strong understanding of aircraft dynamics, flight controls, sensors, and propulsion
- Aerospace, defense, UAS, or autonomous-systems background
