UAS Engineer

Company Overview

Swarm Defense Technologies designs and builds small unmanned aircraft systems for the U.S. Department of Defense. We are headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, where electrical design, firmware, machining, assembly, and flight test all happen under one roof. Our current work is focused on moving production-ready small UAS from prototype to volume delivery on compressed program timelines, and we are building the engineering and manufacturing team to do it.

Job Summary

Swarm Defense is hiring a UAS Engineer who has spent years designing, building, and flying drones and wants to do it for a living on aircraft that get fielded. This is a generalist role. On a given week you might be laying out a new airframe, integrating a flight controller and payload, tuning a control loop, building a test article, or standing on the flight line running the test card and diagnosing why the aircraft did not do what it was supposed to. If you have built and flown your own aircraft, crashed them, figured out why, and built them better, that is the background we are looking for. We care more about what you have flown than what is on your resume.

You will join a small engineering team where the same people design, build, and fly the aircraft, and you will own a piece of the aircraft end to end. You will work directly with our mechanical, electrical, and embedded engineers and with the production floor. Our design-to-flight cycle is measured in weeks, not quarters.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and integrate small UAS subsystems: airframe, propulsion, power, flight controller, sensors, payload, and communication links.
• Build prototype and test aircraft by hand, from initial bring-up through flight-ready configuration.
• Plan and execute flight tests: write test cards, fly or direct flights, capture data, and turn results into design changes.
• Configure and tune flight control stacks (PX4, ArduPilot, or similar), including parameter tuning, failsafes, and mission behavior.
• Diagnose flight anomalies from logs, telemetry, and hardware inspection; run root cause to closure.
• Select and qualify components (motors, ESCs, props, batteries, radios, sensors) against performance and reliability requirements.
• Produce the drawings, wiring diagrams, BOMs, and build instructions needed for production to build what you tested.
• Maintain the aircraft fleet, ground control equipment, and test infrastructure so testing is never blocked on hardware.
• Follow and improve flight safety procedures and range operations for testing.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience designing, building, and flying multirotor or fixed-wing UAS, professional or personal. You must be able to show us aircraft you have built and explain the design decisions.
• Hands-on with the full small-UAS stack: airframe, motors/ESCs, power systems, flight controllers, radios, and GPS/IMU sensors.
• Working knowledge of PX4, ArduPilot, Betaflight, or comparable flight control firmware, including configuration and log analysis.
• Competent with common build tools and methods: soldering, crimping, basic machining or 3D printing, CAD.
• Able to methodically troubleshoot a system that spans mechanical, electrical, and software domains.
• BS in aerospace, mechanical, electrical engineering or a related field, or equivalent demonstrated experience.

Bonus Points

• FAA Part 107 certificate and real flight hours on aircraft you built.
• Experience with UAS at 5 kg or above, fixed-wing or VTOL platforms, or autonomous mission flight.
• Ability to read and modify flight controller firmware or write ground-side tooling (C/C++, Python).
• Experience with RF systems, video links, or mesh radios.
• Competitive or club drone experience (racing, freestyle, long-range, or university UAS teams).
• Defense, aerospace, or other regulated hardware environment.
• Prior exposure to flight testing under a written test plan and safety review.

Benefits

• Health Insurance: We cover 100% of health insurance premiums for our employees.
• 401(k): Company retirement plan with employer match.



Swarm Defense is an early-stage defense company, and the pace is set by what the mission requires. The work is hands-on: engineers build what they design, test it on real aircraft, and own the result. Timelines are short, feedback from the field is direct, and problems get solved by the people closest to them.

We reward initiative and give people ownership of their area. If you want to see your work fly within weeks rather than years, and you are comfortable operating without a large support structure around you, this is the right environment.