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Salary: USD 145,000 - 175,000 / annual
Rainmaker is building integrated systems to modernize cloud-seeding science, combining weather-resistant unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), radar, satellite observations, numerical weather prediction, and novel sensing technologies to increase freshwater availability for farms, ecosystems, and communities.
As Manager, UAS Platform Engineer, you will guide the technical direction of Rainmaker's UAS platforms end-to-end, from requirements and configuration through aircraft design, build, first flight, and qualification. You will own multiple critical technical domains:
**Platform Technical Direction**: Work alongside engineering and research teams to set requirements, define configurations, and oversee the complete aircraft development lifecycle.
**Propulsion & Environmental Performance Modeling**: Build and maintain performance, sizing, and stability models that translate operating conditions—including wind and gust environments—into motor RPM and torque requirements. Use these models to drive propulsion and powertrain component selection.
**Component Qualification**: Evaluate and qualify candidate motors, propellers, ESCs, and battery systems against real endurance, thermal, and margin requirements.
**GNC Ownership & Tuning**: Own guidance, navigation, and control across rotorcraft and fixed-wing platforms, including control architecture, gain tuning, estimator configuration, and sensor selection. Achieve tight, reliable tuning across the full flight envelope, including in wind.
**Flight Test Leadership**: Design and execute flight test campaigns, including writing test plans and cards, integrating instrumentation, identifying and mitigating risk, envelope expansion, log analysis, and reporting results to the design team.
**Testing & QA Leadership**: Lead and mentor the testing and quality assurance team, owning QA processes and standards across flight test and vehicle qualification.
You are equally comfortable performance-modeling a propulsion system at a desk and troubleshooting a GNSS receiver in the field during flight tests. You are fast, thoughtful, autonomous, and a clear communicator with a track record of taking unmanned aircraft from requirements through first flight and full flight test campaigns.
**Requirements**:
- Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent demonstrated experience
- 5+ years developing unmanned aircraft, with at least one platform taken from blank sheet to flying, qualified vehicle
- Experience with aircraft sizing and performance analysis: energy budgets, hover and cruise power, disk loading, endurance and range prediction
- Demonstrated ability to model motor RPM and torque requirements against real environmental conditions (wind, gusts) and translate into propulsion sizing and selection decisions
- Hands-on GNC experience, including PID tuning on multirotor or fixed-wing aircraft, with track record of tuning vehicles to fly reliably in demanding conditions
- Deep working knowledge of PX4 or ArduPilot
- Experience writing and executing structured flight test campaigns, including envelope expansion on new airframes
- Experience leading or building out a testing and quality assurance function or team
- FAA Part 107 certificate; experience operating under waivers and BVLOS preferred
- Willingness to deploy to field for extended periods, including OCONUS
