Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

About the role

Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the Forgotten Frontier and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere. Mission Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.

Responsibilities

• Deploy forward with aircraft, ground systems, and engineers to real-world test sites and customer environments
• Own on-site integration, troubleshooting, and rapid iteration of flight hardware and software
• Act as the connective tissue between flight operations, engineering, and customers
• Debug avionics, RF, power, software, and mechanical issues in the field under time pressure
• Execute flight tests, demos, and exercises with minimal support and high autonomy
• Capture ground truth, flight data, and operator feedback and drive it back into the product
• Support customer training, mission planning, and operational workflows

Requirements

2+ years working on real systems in the field (aerospace, robotics, defense, autonomy, or hardware startups)

Strong hands-on debugging skills across hardware and software

Comfort working across disciplines: avionics, RF, embedded software, mechanical systems, and ops

Able to operate independently in ambiguous, high-pressure environments

Strong communication skills with engineers, operators, and customers

Willingness to travel frequently and operate out of test ranges, airfields, and remote locations

Qualifications

Meaningful equity

Top market salary and bonuses

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Factory in El Segundo

Real ownership, real hardware, real flight

Small team, massive responsibility

High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture

Dream desk setup

Daily lunch

Unlimited celsius

Skills

Builder mentality

Full extreme ownership

High-trust, no-BS team

Raw engineering

Real hardware

Real flight

Benefits

Technical interview

One-on-one with CEO

Meet the team in-person

US salary range $120,000 - $220,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

Hightly competitive equity grants are considered part of Icarus' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer.

We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.