Senior UAV Prototyping Engineer

Das ist der Job

This provides our operators with a decisive edge in highly contested environments.

Darum lohnt es sich

Experience operating autonomously across multidisciplinary engineering teams, including resolving competing technical requirements between disciplines yourself. STARK is a new kind of defence technology company revolutionizing the way autonomous systems are deployed across multiple domains.

We design, develop and manufacture high performance unmanned aerial and terrestrial systems that are software-defined, mass-scalable, and cost effective. We’re focused on delivering deployable, high-performance systems—not future promises.

In a time of rising threats, STARK is bolstering the technological edge of NATO Allies and their Partners to deter aggression and defend Europe—today. Your mission Own the path from napkin sketch to flying hardware end-to-end, faster than traditional aerospace primes consider possible — and do it without someone telling you what to build next.

This role exists for engineers who've already run the full cycle on their own before: people who can size up an ambiguous problem, make the call on design trade-offs, and know when to elevate versus when to just fix it. You'll set the technical approach for your builds, not execute someone else’s spec.

Responsibilities Own the full engineering development cycle for UAV prototypes; concept, design, fabrication, integration, first flight. Independently, escalating only decisions that genuinely require sign-off above your authority.

Make autonomous calls on airframe structures, avionic stacks, mechanisms, and ground support equipment design, selecting materials and methods based on judgment rather than waiting for direction.

Set the technical approach when coordinating with multidisciplinary engineering groups, and resolve cross-discipline design conflicts directly rather than routing them upward.

Lead field flight test campaigns: own go/no-go decisions, drive rapid root-cause diagnosis on anomalies or failures, and decide independently whether a fix or a redesign is warranted.

Convert informal, tribal, or "learned in a shed" engineering knowledge into documented, repeatable processes that other engineers, including more junior ones, can follow. Mentor and technically unblock junior and mid-level engineers on design reviews and build problems, without requiring formal management authority to do so.

Proactively flag technical risk, schedule risk, or process gaps to leadership before they are asked – silence is not an acceptable default. Iterate on designs based on field and test data without needing a retrospective meeting to tell you what went wrong.

Qualifications Demonstrable track record of having owned a full engineering development cycle, concept through fielded or flight-tested prototype, independently, on at least one UAV/UGV (or comparable) platform.

Extensive hands-on experience with composites, mechanical assemblies, robotics, and embedded hardware integration, built over years in a workshop or test environment, not from documentation alone.

Proven judgment under ambiguity and schedule pressure: demonstrated ability to decide what's good-enough-to-test versus good-enough-to-deploy without guidance. Strong, independent root-cause diagnostic ability, you can look at a broken airframe or anomalous flight data and drive it to a corrective action without senior engineer input.

Demonstrated experience informally mentoring or technically leading other engineers, even without direct reports.

Nice to have Active A2/A3 drone pilot certification or equivalent national licence CAD expertise (Fusion 360, SolidWorks preferred) sufficient to set design standards or templates for others, not just iterate your own files Deep familiarity with flight controller ecosystems (PX4, ArduPilot, Betaflight) at debugging level, not just configuration Exposure to fixed-wing platforms, not just multirotor Background in competition, motorsport, or workshop environments that progressed into leading a build or owning a program end-to-end SECURITY CLEARANCE Due to the nature of our work in the defence sector, candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain the appropriate security clearance required for this position.

Details will be provided during the recruitment process. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY We are an equal-opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. #J-18808-Ljbffr