Lead, Air Segment

Hermeus is a venture-backed defense aviation company reclaiming the lost art of rapid iterative prototyping to build the fastest aircraft in the world today. By prioritizing relentless hardware iteration, we deliver high-speed systems at the pace of the modern battlefield. We work with the Department of War to provide the high-speed capabilities our nation and its allies need to maintain a durable, asymmetric advantage.

The Lead, Air Segment is responsible for delivering a robust, mission-ready airborne mission platform for the aircraft. This role owns the airborne infrastructure, avionics, compute, communications, and interfaces that enable mission autonomy, sensors, payloads, and weapons systems to operate reliably in ground and flight test environments. 

As a first-level people leader, the Lead, Air Segment provides technical leadership, execution ownership, and day-to-day guidance for engineers working on airborne mission systems. This role remains hands-on while also owning delivery, integration, and readiness outcomes for the air segment. 

• Own end-to-end technical outcomes for the airborne mission platform, from design through integration, test, and flight readiness 
• Lead the development and integration of airborne mission systems, including the Mission Management System (MMS), onboard compute, networking and avionics, airborne tactical and flight communications, weapons, payload and stores management interfaces, and sensor and camera system hardware and interfaces. 
• Define and maintain clean interfaces between the airborne platform and mission autonomy, ground systems, and external payloads 
• Ensure the airborne platform is robust, reliable, and capable of supporting evolving mission capabilities across vehicle variants 
• Drive integration, test planning, and execution in support of ground test and flight test milestones 
• Identify technical risks early and lead mitigation efforts across hardware, software, and avionics domains 
• Provide day-to-day technical leadership, mentorship, and feedback to engineers within the Air Segment scope 
• Coordinate closely with Mission Autonomy and Ground Segment leads to resolve dependencies and integration issues 
• Communicate status, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to engineering leadership and program stakeholders 

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field 
• 5+ years of experience developing airborne systems, avionics, or mission-critical embedded software 
• Demonstrated experience owning and delivering complex airborne or vehicle-integrated systems 
• Strong understanding of airborne compute, networking, and communications architectures 
• Experience integrating sensors, payloads, or weapons interfaces on a vehicle platform 
• Proven ability to lead technical execution across multidisciplinary teams 
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced development and test environment 
• Strong communication skills and ability to make and defend technical decisions 

• Master’s degree in a relevant technical discipline 
• Experience supporting ground and flight test campaigns 
• Familiarity with mission systems architectures and system-of-systems design 
• Experience with stores management systems (SMS) or payload integration frameworks 
• Background in autonomy-enabled or unmanned aircraft systems 
• Prior experience as a technical lead or first-level people leader 
• Experience working across geographically distributed teams 

U.S. EXPORT CONTROL COMPLIANCE STATUS 

The person hired will have access to information and items subject to U.S. export controls, and therefore, must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing. US persons include U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and asylees and refugees with such status granted, not pending. 

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Hermeus is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions at Hermeus are based solely on merit, competence, and qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.