Perception Hardware Integration Engineer

Perception Hardware Integration Engineer

Location: El Segundo / Los Angeles, CA (Onsite, 5 days/week) Travel: Biweekly desert flight tests in Mojave, CA Compensation: $180,000–$220,000 base + competitive equity Work Authorization: US Citizen or Green Card required

We are a fastgrowing, venturebacked defense technology startup addressing America's interceptor missile production shortage. With $30M raised across preseed and seed rounds, our team designs, builds, and flighttests real missile hardware on an aggressive twoweek cadence. To date, we've completed 20+ rocket flight tests, operating with the speed and execution of a modern hardware startup.

As a Perception Hardware Integration Engineer, you will own the full lifecycle of our missile seeker electrooptical hardware systemfrom benchtop prototype to highvolume production. You will integrate sensors, optics, compute modules, and thermal imaging units into flightready seeker packages, ensuring precise calibration and readiness for rapid test cycles.

This role is highly handson, fastpaced, and ideal for engineers who thrive in hardwareintensive environments with continuous iteration and real flight testing.

• Own the seeker hardware system across prototype development, integration, testing, and production scaling.
• Assemble and integrate optical sensors, LWIR/MWIR thermal imaging units, compute boards, custom optics, IMUs, and wiring harnesses into complete seeker packages.
• Perform advanced calibration, including NUC, radiometric calibration, badpixel mapping, and boresight alignment across multiple seeker systems in parallel.
• Participate in biweekly flight tests in Mojave, analyzing flight data and driving rapid mechanical/optical redesign cycles.
• Collaborate with crossfunctional engineering teams to ensure environmental qualification, reliability, and production readiness.

• 8–15 years of handson integration experience with electrooptical systems, thermal imaging (LWIR/MWIR), or defense sensor hardware.
• Demonstrated ability to take optical hardware from CAD (Siemens NX) through prototype build, environmental qualification, and flight test.
• Proficiency in Python for test automation and hardware bringup.
• Comfortable working onsite in El Segundo/Los Angeles with regular desert travel.
• US Citizen or Green Card (no visa sponsorship).

• Electrooptical cameras, custom optics, compute modules, IMUs, power distribution
• Siemens NX (CAD), GD&T
• LWIR/MWIR thermal imaging
• NUC, radiometric calibration, boresight alignment
• Test automation, FPA characterization