Mission Operator - UAV

We are hiring a UAV Mission Operator to lead the drone side of our Mission Operations team, Swarm Forge. You will lead the drone operator team, own the flight test pipeline, and run live customer demonstrations to ensure systems are prepared for both internal testing and external deployment. You will work in close partnership with our Flight Test Engineer, owning execution, the team, and everything customer-facing. Your role involves validating new software releases in flight, planning and running customer-facing demonstrations, and feeding structured feedback back to engineering daily.

Responsibilities

• Lead and schedule the drone operator team day to day
• Partner with the Flight Test Engineer to drive product development on the air platform — shaping test priorities, splitting execution, and turning results into engineering asks
• Own execution of Development Test Requests and flight test plans across the Ax4, Archer, and Neros fleet, working directly with engineering on results and next steps
• Validate new software, model, and orchestrator releases in flight, and catch regressions before they reach a customer or a demo
• Plan and run customer- and investor-facing drone demonstrations, including live-fly events and vendor days
• Own customer training and support, including training Army and customer personnel on Scout's drone systems
• Track fleet readiness and maintenance across the UAS fleet
• Coordinate airspace deconfliction and hold the safety line on every flight operation
• Feed structured feedback on flight behavior, hardware issues, and software bugs back to engineering daily

Requirements

• Hands-on UAS/drone operations experience — piloting, mission planning, or direct oversight of drone operations
• 3+ years of experience operating, maintaining, or testing unmanned aerial systems (UAS), drones, or similar platforms
• Demonstrated team leadership, not just individual flying or engineering
• Comfortable working directly with engineers daily — triaging bugs, validating builds, giving feedback specific enough to act on
• Able to co-own product development with a technical peer
• Experience running live demonstrations or training sessions for military or customer stakeholders
• Strong organizational skills — able to build a schedule, a readiness tracker, and a team rhythm where none exists yet
• Working knowledge of drone safety procedures, airspace coordination, and incident reporting
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities
• Passion about defense of the United States and its allies
• May be expected to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance

Benefits

• Competitive base salary and bonus
• Meaningful equity
• Premium medical, dental, and vision plans with $0 paycheck contribution
• Competitive PTO and company holiday calendar
• Unlimited AI tokens
• Catered lunch daily and fully stocked kitchen
• EV charging
• Relocation assistance (depending on role eligibility)