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Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

Icarus· Engineering
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Hybrid (Los Angeles, CA)$120k - $220kFull-timePosted 8mo ago

About the role

Senior role at Icarus focused on on-site integration, field debugging, and near-real-time collaboration between flight operations, engineering, and customers to test and iterate flight hardware and software in the stratosphere-focused aerospace startup.

Responsibilities

  • Deploy forward with aircraft, ground systems, and engineers to real-world test sites and customer environments
  • Own on-site integration, troubleshooting, and rapid iteration of flight hardware and software
  • Act as the connective tissue between flight operations, engineering, and customers
  • Debug avionics, RF, power, software, and mechanical issues in the field under time pressure
  • Execute flight tests, demos, and exercises with minimal support and high autonomy
  • Collect ground truth, flight data, and operator feedback and drive it back into the product
  • Support customer training, mission planning, and operational workflows

Qualifications

  • 2+ years working on real systems in the field (aerospace, robotics, defense, autonomy, or hardware startups)
  • Strong hands-on debugging skills across hardware and software
  • Comfort working across disciplines: avionics, RF, embedded software, mechanical systems, and ops
  • Ability to operate independently in ambiguous, high-pressure environments
  • Strong communication skills with engineers, operators, and customers
  • Willingness to travel frequently and operate out of test ranges, airfields, and remote locations

Skills

Required:Field deployment and integrationDebugging across hardware and softwareCross-disciplinary collaborationTravel readiness

Benefits

  • Meaningful equity
  • Top market salary and bonuses
  • Health, dental, and vision insurance
  • Factory in El Segundo
  • Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
  • Small team, massive responsibility
  • High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
  • Dream desk setup
  • Daily lunch
  • Unlimited Celsius
Last updated Sep 16, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Icarus

Stratospheric birds for defense

Always-on intelligence and connectivity for Defense. Icarus builds autonomous, solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 feet for weeks at a time, above the clouds harnessing the power of the Sun, but never too close. Acting as a Cell Tower in the Sky, it’s the U-2 spy plane reborn in 2025, except each costs $100K and is built by the thousands. The future of warfare is persistent swarms in the Stratosphere.

hardwareswarm-roboticsaerospace
Company profileWebsite

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