Systems Integration and Test Engineer (Senior to Staff Level)

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors https://www.skydio.com/solutions/energy-and-utilities to first responders https://www.skydio.com/solutions/public-safety, soldiers in battlefield scenarios https://www.skydio.com/solutions/national-security/tactical-isr, and beyond https://www.skydio.com/solutions.

About the role:

Reliability is our most important feature!

Autonomous systems bring together electronics hardware, sensing, and real-time AI software. The complexity of these systems, paired with their operation in uncontrolled real-world environments, makes the development, performance, reliability, and integration strategy that ties everything together a key element of delivering a great product.

We are seeking an experienced and versatile Senior/Staff Systems Integration and Test Engineer to own definition, integration, verification, and failure analysis of state-of-the-art autonomous flying robots. Through requirements and architecture definition, field and lab data analysis, performance testing, rapid issue RCA, and cross-functional solution definition, you will ensure product integrity for the diverse range of applications across infrastructure, public safety, and defense that Skydio serves.

How you'll make an impact:

- Own the definition of comprehensive and testable system requirements in close partnership with product managers, designers, and developers for new hardware products, ranging from product-level to component-level. Help establish the requirements-definition standards other programs adopt

- Guarantee overall system performance and product integrity through system architecture definition, system to sub-system level design reviews, and component selection criteria

- Define and implement cross-functional system behaviors and telemetry to optimize lifetime system performance, health, and field diagnostics

- Perform bring-up and performance verification during new product introduction

- Act as the first responder for early system failures, triage cross-functional issues between mechanical, electrical, embedded, autonomy, etc. and serve as the technical expert when issues span multiple programs or teams

- Immerse yourself in massive datasets from flight telemetry and field analytics to learn from existing programs, perform risk assessments, inform prognostic and condition-based maintenance protocols, and implement future mitigations

- Implement processes and tools to enable efficient product development and testing, including test infrastructure (SW and HW), system maturity/risk tracking, and accountability systems

- Operate independently with limited direction on ambiguous, cross-disciplinary problems, defining the problem statement as often as solving it

What makes you a good fit:

- 6+ years of hands-on definition, design, analysis, testing, modeling, and delivery of highly reliable electro-mechanical systems in rapid development environments

- Systems-engineering approach to problem solving, and a knack for rapidly identifying issues within mechanical, electrical, and software domains. Ability to work broadly across multiple domains, identify the critical path, and dive deep when necessary

- Test design and execution for system bringup and performance verification, including mechatronic prototyping and fabrication skills for fixture development

- Proficiency in design for reliability principles, physics of failure, and integration risks of critical electronics subsystems such as PCBAs, motors, batteries, cameras, compute modules, and sensors

- Proficiency in Python, SQL, and AI tooling to analyze datasets for applications i …