Lead, Air Segment

Hermeus is a high-speed aircraft manufacturer focused on the rapid design, build, and test of high-Mach and hypersonic aircraft for the national interest. Working directly with the Department of Defense, Hermeus delivers capabilities that will ensure that our nation, and our allies, maintain an asymmetric advantage over any and all potential adversaries. The Lead, Air Segment is responsible for delivering a robust, mission-ready airborne mission platform for the aircraft. This role owns the airborne infrastructure, avionics, compute, communications, and interfaces that enable mission autonomy, sensors, payloads, and weapons systems to operate reliably in ground and flight test environments.    As a first-level people leader, the Lead, Air Segment provides technical leadership, execution ownership, and day-to-day guidance for engineers working on airborne mission systems. This role remains hands-on while also owning delivery, integration, and readiness outcomes for the air segment.  Responsibilities:

Own end-to-end technical outcomes for the airborne mission platform, from design through integration, test, and flight readiness 

Lead the development and integration of airborne mission systems, including the Mission Management System (MMS), onboard compute, networking and avionics, airborne tactical and flight communications, weapons, payload and stores management interfaces, and sensor and camera system hardware and interfaces. 

Define and maintain clean interfaces between the airborne platform and mission autonomy, ground systems, and external payloads 

Ensure the airborne platform is robust, reliable, and capable of supporting evolving mission capabilities across vehicle variants 

Drive integration, test planning, and execution in support of ground test and flight test milestones 

Identify technical risks early and lead mitigation efforts across hardware, software, and avionics domains 

Provide day-to-day technical leadership, mentorship, and feedback to engineers within the Air Segment scope 

Coordinate closely with Mission Autonomy and Ground Segment leads to resolve dependencies and integration issues 

Communicate status, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to engineering leadership and program stakeholders 

Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field 

5+ years of experience developing airborne systems, avionics, or mission-critical embedded software 

Demonstrated experience owning and delivering complex airborne or vehicle-integrated systems 

Strong understanding of airborne compute, networking, and communications architectures 

Experience integrating sensors, payloads, or weapons interfaces on a vehicle platform 

Proven ability to lead technical execution across multidisciplinary teams 

Comfortable operating in a fast-paced development and test environment 

Strong communication skills and ability to make and defend technical decisions 

Preferred Skills & Experience:

Master’s degree in a relevant technical discipline 

Experience supporting ground and flight test campaigns 

Familiarity with mission systems architectures and system-of-systems design 

Experience with stores management systems (SMS) or payload integration frameworks 

Background in autonomy-enabled or unmanned aircraft systems 

Prior experience as a technical lead or first-level people leader 

Experience working across geographically distributed teams