Flight R&D Engineer

In this hands-on engineering role, you will be at the front line of understanding how our aircraft behaves in the real world and ensuring it keeps getting safer, smarter, and more reliable. You will dig deep into flight data, work closely with hardware, and help define how the aircraft responds when things go wrong. This is a role for someone who thinks in first principles, is energized by anomalies, and finds satisfaction in turning raw logs and physical evidence into clear, actionable understanding.

Responsibilities

• Flight Log Analysis & Root Cause Investigation: Own the post-flight analysis pipeline - parse, visualize, and interpret flight logs using tools like UAV Log viewer and ArduPilot Web Tools to identify anomalies, failure signatures, and off-nominal behaviour. Produce structured Root Cause Analysis (RCA) reports that trace failures to their physical origin with supporting evidence and quantitative data.
• Craft Inspection & Physical Failure Analysis: Conduct systematic post-incident inspections of airframe, propulsion, and avionics hardware. Correlate physical findings with log data to build a complete picture of failure events. Maintain inspection checklists and contribute to evolving airworthiness standards for our thrust-vectored tail sitter platform.
• Failsafe Definition & Safety Behaviour: Assist in defining, reviewing, and validating the aircraft's failsafe logic - covering stability loss as well as scenarios such as communication loss, sensor degradation, battery faults, and actuator failures. Translate operational risk understanding into concrete parameter recommendations and behavioural specifications in collaboration with software and systems teams.
• Peripheral Integration Support: Support the integration of new sensors and peripheral hardware onto the flight stack - including bench characterisation, ground testing, and in-flight data quality evaluation. Help validate that new hardware performs within bounds required for safe flight operations.

Requirements

• Experience: 0-2 years in aerospace, UAV, robotics, or a related technical field. Strong academic background or project experience in aeronautics, mechanical engineering, physics, or a closely related discipline.
• Fundamentals: Solid grasp of flight mechanics, rigid body dynamics, and aerodynamic principles. Comfort reasoning from first principles about why a vehicle behaves the way it does - or why it stopped.
• Analytical Rigour: Structured, evidence-driven approach to problem-solving. Ability to form and test hypotheses against data, identify root causes under ambiguity, and communicate findings in well-organised written reports.
• Hands-on experience: Building, flying, or repairing multirotors or fixed-wing UAVs with exposure to ArduPilot/PX4 or GCS tools (Mission Planner, QGroundControl)
• Documentation: Strong technical writing habits with the ability to produce clear RCA reports and inspection records for both engineering and cross-functional audiences.

Nice to have

• Exposure to control theory - PID loops, stability margins, step response characterisation - even in an academic or simulation context
• Familiarity with MAVLink, dataflash logs, or telemetry formats
• Experience with SITL environments or hardware-in-the-loop testing
• Working knowledge of Python for data processing and visualisation. Comfort with time-series flight data analysis.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health insurance to keep you and your loved ones covered
• Relocation assistance and a daily travel stipend to ease your commute
• Advanced salary credit to support you when you need it