Flight Research Senior Systems Engineer

Joby Aviation • Santa Cruz, CA

12h • $144,100 - $198,200

About The Position

The Senior Systems Engineer is the technical architect of new and novel unmanned aircraft system configurations. You are responsible for ensuring that complex, interdependent systems—including flight controls, avionics, C2 links, and ground stations—are integrated, safe, and verifiable. You will lead the "Systems Thinking" for the program, moving from high-level mission concepts to detailed requirements, architecture design, safety assessments, and flight-readiness. You will work closely with other engineers to ensure that the "as-built" aircraft matches the "as-designed" requirements.
The position requires a solid understanding of aircraft systems, systems development, and industry specific certification processes. Sufficient background knowledge and a willingness to learn is critical to understand complex trade-offs involved in system design both within avionics and across the aircraft systems as a whole.

Requirements

• Education: BS in Aerospace, Systems, or Electrical Engineering.
• Experience: 8+ years in aerospace systems engineering.
• Methonds: Thorough understanding of systems engineering concepts and methods.
• UAS Specific Knowledge: Experience with autonomous system logic, Command & Control (C2) link reliability, and GCS integration for Group 3-5 UAS.
• Tool Proficiency: Expert-level experience with MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) and requirement management databases.
• Flight Test Support: Ability to travel to flight test locations to support experimental troubleshooting and correlate flight data back to system models.
• This position must meet US export control compliance requirements, therefore a candidate must qualify as a “US Person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15. “US Person” includes US Citizens, lawful permanent residents, refugees, or asylees.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in digital flight control systems
• Experience with development and test processes supporting aircraft certification (ARP4754, DO-178C, D0-254, DO-160)
• Demonstrated success in clean sheet aerospace development
• MS/PhD in engineering

Responsibilities

• Systems Architecture & Requirement Ownership: Lead the definition and management of system-level requirements and traceability. You don’t just write requirements; you define the hierarchy and validation methods using tools like Jama, Polarion, or Flow.
• Conduct Trade Studies: Evaluate architectures and specific component options against considerations such as functional assessment, cost, mass, reliability, and performance at the component and aircraft level. Lead make versus buy decisions. Engage with external vendors.
• Safety & Reliability Leadership: Drive System Safety Assessments (SSA), Functional Hazard Assessments (FHA), and Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) for complex autonomous systems.
• Cross-Functional Integration: Serve as the "glue" between specialized teams (Software, Hardware, Flight Controls, and GCS) to adapt the Joby hardware and software stack to new configurations and applications.
• V&V Strategy (Verification & Validation): Define the master verification plan. You determine which requirements are met through simulation, HIL (Hardware-in-the-Loop) testing, and/or light testing.
• Flight Readiness Authority: Lead the Technical Readiness Reviews (TRR) and Flight Readiness Reviews (FRR). You provide the analytical "green light" that the aircraft systems are safe to transition to the flight test team.
• Mentorship: Act as a lead for project specific systems engineers, reviewing their work, defining project level best practices, and standardizing engineering workflows.

Benefits

• Compensation at Joby is a combination of base pay and Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).
• The target base pay for this position is $144,100 - $198,200/yr.
• The compensation package will be determined by job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.
• Joby also offers a comprehensive benefits package, including paid time off, healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan with a company match, an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP), short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, and more.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level