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Hardware Systems Lead, Drone

Applied Intuition· Hardware
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Sunnyvale$200k - $270kFull-timePosted 1w ago

About the role

Hands-on chief engineer for drone hardware, owning mechanical and electrical system architecture, integration, testing, and survivability to enable flight for Applied Intuition’s drone platforms.

Responsibilities

  • Own the end-to-end hardware architecture, mechanical and electrical, for Applied Intuition’s drone platforms
  • Be hands-on: prototype, build, integrate, debug, and test hardware on real aircraft, not just review designs
  • Define and drive survivability: determine how sensors, compute, avionics, harnesses, connectors, and enclosures will hold up to vibration, shock, hard landings, thermal extremes, dust, water ingress, and EMI
  • Lead integration of sensors (cameras, lidar, radar, GNSS/IMU), compute, power systems, communications, and flight controllers onto airframes
  • Own size, weight, and power (SWaP) tradeoffs, balancing performance, flight time, payload capacity, and cost
  • Define hardware requirements and reference architectures that scale across aircraft configurations
  • Plan and run environmental, durability, and flight testing, analyze failures and crashes, and drive root cause and design fixes
  • Be the technical authority and escalation point for hardware tradeoffs across mechanical, electrical, avionics, software, autonomy, and flight test
  • Lead hardware design reviews, set engineering standards, and mentor other engineers
  • Support flight test campaigns, demonstrations, and field operations

Qualifications

  • BS/MS in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, or a related field
  • 10+ years of hands-on hardware engineering experience on drones, UAS, or other aircraft
  • Strong command of the whole hardware system: airframe and structures, electrical architecture, power distribution, harness design, avionics, and how they interact
  • A track record of designing hardware to survive demanding environments, with real experience in vibration, shock, ingress protection, thermal management, and EMI/EMC
  • Hands-on experience in the lab and in the field: building prototypes, wiring and debugging systems, running flight tests, and diagnosing failures and crashes
  • Experience integrating sensors such as cameras, lidar, radar, and GNSS/IMU, along with compute and flight control hardware, onto airborne platforms
  • Experience with SWaP optimization and lightweight design, including composites and carbon fiber
  • Experience with reliability and qualification testing (environmental testing, HALT, flight-hour tracking)
  • Systems-level thinking and the ability to make architecture decisions and defend them
  • Experience designing for manufacturability and field serviceability

Skills

Required:Hardware system architectureSensor integrationSWaP optimizationEnvironmental testingManufacturability & field serviceabilityFlight testing & debugging
Last updated Oct 25, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Applied Intuition

Building vehicle intelligence | Applied Intuition

Applied Intuition is the vehicle intelligence company with the tools, Vehicle OS, and autonomy stacks for creating safe, AI-powered vehicle experiences.

AIAutonomy stacksSelf-Driving SystemSimulationTesting & ValidationVehicle IntelligenceVehicle OSai-infrastructure-and-development
Company profileWebsite

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