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Merlin Labs (NASDAQ: MRLN) is a publicly traded aerospace and defense company developing autonomous flight systems for commercial and military aircraft. The company has demonstrated its non-human pilot autonomy platform through hundreds of autonomous flights from global test facilities and is expanding to accelerate certification and commercialization.
You will lead and grow a team of engineers spanning configuration management, development assurance, process assurance, and software quality assurance. Your responsibilities include:
• Leading and developing a multi-disciplinary engineering team with hiring, mentoring, and performance management accountability
• Owning configuration management processes and partnering with engineering and flight test leadership to develop, maintain, and continuously improve these critical systems
• Standardizing and deploying core engineering processes across the organization, ensuring compliance with established policies and supporting future certification
• Establishing and running a compliance auditing program to verify that engineering processes meet policy requirements for military and civil certification of autonomous systems
• Representing process assurance in interactions with certification authorities, designated engineering representatives, and customer quality organizations
• Serving as primary point of contact for DCMA and other government quality assurance representatives on military programs, providing evidence of process compliance during surveillance and audits
• Driving continuous improvement of engineering processes based on audit findings, lessons learned, and evolving regulatory guidance
• Leading root-cause and corrective action analysis to close audit findings
• Reporting to the VP of Airworthiness & Certification on process health, audit outcomes, and improvement roadmap
• Building scalable, repeatable process frameworks to support planned organizational growth
This role requires deep expertise in aerospace certification standards, process discipline, and team leadership in a fast-growing, safety-critical environment.
REQUIREMENTS:
• Bachelor's degree in engineering or related technical field
• 12+ years of experience in aerospace systems, software, or hardware development, including significant experience in configuration management, process assurance, and development assurance
• Direct working knowledge of completed certification programs covering configuration management, DO-178C, DO-254, ARP4754A/B, and ARP4761A
• Working knowledge of software/tool qualification (DO-330) as applied to development and verification tools on certification programs
• 5+ years of experience leading or managing a team of engineers, including hiring, mentoring, and performance management across multiple technical disciplines
• Experience developing, auditing, or defending engineering process documentation for regulatory or customer compliance, with track record of successful internal or external audits (e.g., FAA Stage of Involvement per Order 8110.4C/8110.49)
• Working knowledge of military airworthiness processes, civil (FAA) certification frameworks, systems safety, and quality management system standards (e.g., SAE EIA-649B, MIL-STD-882E, AS9100D)
• U.S. citizenship required and ability to obtain security clearance
NICE TO HAVES:
• Experience with ASTM F3230 and F3061 consensus standards or Part 23/consensus-based certification bases for small and autonomous aircraft
• Experience leading development and implementation of complex PLM tools
• Experience managing problem reporting tools including standardization and analytics
• Background in autonomous or unmanned aviation systems or other safety-critical domains
• Experience building or scaling configuration management and process assurance functions in a startup
• Active security clearance (TS preferred)
• Experience with CMMI-based process maturity appraisals for DoD-facing organizations
• Experience with airworthiness cybersecurity certification (DO-326A/ED-202A, DO-356A)
