← All roles

Principal Engineer, cUAS Lead, Omen

Anduril· Maritime & Maneuver Dominance : Maneuver Dominance Engineering : MD - ME
Apply on company site
Costa Mesa, CA$220k - $292kFull-timePosted 3w ago

About the role

Principal engineer responsible for end-to-end airborne counter-UAS effector payload for Anduril’s Omen hover-to-cruise autonomous air vehicle, from concept through production, including team leadership and production readiness.

Responsibilities

  • Own the counter-UAS effector payload end to end, from first prototype to qualified production hardware.
  • Design the effector and firing system. Mounting structure, recoil and impulse management, feed and cycling, safe and arm interlocks.
  • Own the steering hardware. Size the actuators, gearing, and drives, and design the isolation that protects the airframe from firing loads and the effector from rotor wash.
  • Hold the pointing error budget and know where every part of it goes.
  • Select and evaluate the sensors that range and locate the target. Bench and flight characterization for range accuracy, latency, and track quality against small targets in clutter.
  • Build and lead the team. Hire across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and test, set the technical bar, and establish how the team works.
  • Set the payload roadmap, balancing near-term demonstrations against the architecture that has to carry into production.
  • Own payload interface control with the vehicle and mission system teams. Mounting and alignment, power and signal definitions, harnessing, time sync.
  • Plan and run ground and flight test campaigns, including live range events, and lead the root-cause work when results do not match prediction.
  • Take it to production. Design for manufacturability, tolerance and reliability analysis, supplier selection, first article, acceptance test.
  • Work safety and compliance on safe and arm architecture, range safety, and export control.

Qualifications

  • 10+ years designing electromechanical hardware, including at least one product you carried from concept to production
  • Strong engineering background, ideally 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, and joint design
  • Experience sizing actuators for precision pointing, and a working grasp of the control bandwidth tradeoffs that come with it
  • Experience with vibration and shock isolation, including isolator selection and the dynamic analysis behind it
  • Experience selecting and characterizing ranging sensors. Radar, lidar, EO/IR, or laser rangefinders
  • Hands-on test experience, from rig design and instrumentation through the data analysis that closes a design question
  • Experience taking hardware to production: DFM, supplier engagement, first article inspection, acceptance test
  • Proficiency in CAD (NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent)
  • Ability to travel about 25% with potential surges for test and demonstration events
  • Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance

Skills

Required:Electromechanical hardware designActuator sizing and control bandwidthVibration and shock isolationRanging sensors selection and characterizationProduction readiness (DFM, supplier engagement, first article, acceptance test)CAD proficiency

Benefits

  • Competitive, comprehensive benefits package
  • Top-tier benefits for full-time employees (information available through Explore Our Benefits)
Last updated Sep 30, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Anduril

defense-aero-and-safetyliquid-ai-recruiting-targetsetter-30setter-30-2026-q1wing-list-2026wing-list-2026-giga-stage
Company profileWebsite

More open roles at Anduril