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Salary: USD 220,000 - 292,000 / annual
Anduril Industries is seeking a Principal Engineer to own the counter-UAS (unmanned aerial system) effector payload for Omen, an autonomous hover-to-cruise air vehicle with a mass-production contract for 50 systems. This is a technical leadership role combining hands-on engineering ownership with team building and program execution.
You will own the counter-UAS effector payload end-to-end, from prototype through qualified production hardware. Key responsibilities include:
**Technical Ownership:**
- Design the effector and firing system, including mounting structure, recoil and impulse management, feed and cycling, and safe/arm interlocks
- Own steering hardware: size actuators, gearing, and drives; design isolation protecting the airframe from firing loads and the effector from rotor wash
- Hold and manage the pointing error budget across all subsystems
- Select and evaluate ranging and targeting sensors (radar, lidar, EO/IR, laser rangefinders); conduct bench and flight characterization for range accuracy, latency, and track quality against small targets in clutter
- Own payload interface control with vehicle and mission system teams: mounting, alignment, power, signal definitions, harnessing, time synchronization
- Plan and execute ground and flight test campaigns, including live range events; lead root-cause analysis when results diverge from prediction
- Drive production readiness: design for manufacturability, tolerance and reliability analysis, supplier selection, first article inspection, acceptance testing
- Manage safety and compliance: safe/arm architecture, range safety, export control (ITAR/EAR)
**Team Leadership:**
- Build and lead a multidisciplinary team across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and test disciplines
- Set technical bar and establish team working practices
- Hire and develop team members
- Set the payload roadmap, balancing near-term demonstrations with production-ready architecture
This role requires deep expertise in electromechanical systems, precision mechanisms, and the ability to navigate complex technical tradeoffs in a defense environment with real operational constraints.
**REQUIREMENTS:**
- 10+ years designing electromechanical hardware, including at least one product carried from concept to production
- Strong engineering background in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Aerospace, or Electrical Engineering
- Experience leading multidisciplinary teams, including hiring
- Deep mechanical design capability: structures under high transient loads, precision mechanisms, tolerance stack-ups, joint design
- Experience sizing actuators for precision pointing and understanding control bandwidth tradeoffs
- Experience with vibration and shock isolation, including isolator selection and dynamic analysis
- Experience selecting and characterizing ranging sensors (radar, lidar, EO/IR, laser rangefinders)
- Hands-on test experience: rig design, instrumentation, data analysis to close design questions
- Experience taking hardware to production: DFM, supplier engagement, first article inspection, acceptance test
- Proficiency in CAD (NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent)
- Ability to travel approximately 25% with potential surges for test and demonstration events
- Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance
**PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:**
- Direct experience with weapon, effector, launcher, or ordnance-adjacent systems, including safe/arm design
- Counter-UAS experience (engagement chains, fire control, targeting small unmanned aircraft)
- VTOL, tail-sitter, or rotorcraft experience; familiarity with payload environments (vibration, EMI, rotor wash)
- Experience with stabilized pointing, gimbals, boresighting, or targeting chains
- Familiarity with fire control (lead and ballistic solutions, sensor-to-effector latency)
- Environmental qualification testing (MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461)
- Airworthiness experience with external stores
- MATLAB/Simulink, multibody dynamics, or FEA for transient structural loads
- Familiarity with ITAR/EAR as applied to effector development
- C++ or Python for test automation and data analysis
