Manager, GNC and Test Engineering

Job description

Make it rain. Make Snow. Make Earth Habitable. Rainmaker builds and deploys audacious technologies that work with nature to create an abundant, habitable planet. We are modernizing proven cloud-seeding science with weather-resistant UAS, radar and satellite observations, numerical weather prediction, novel sensing and validation systems, and sustainable seeding technologies. We are building an integrated system to make more freshwater available to farms, ecosystems, and communities. Our ambition is bold, but we pursue it with humility. We take on difficult problems in the real world with technical rigor, grit, integrity, and an openness to learning and course-correcting. We are hiring individuals with evidence of exceptional ability. If you want to build systems that endure, restore, and provide, and help deliver the future we were promised, we want to hear from you. We're looking for a Manager, GNC and Test Engineering who has taken an unmanned aircraft from requirements through first flight and a full flight test campaign. You're equally comfortable performance-modeling a propulsion system at a desk and troubleshooting a GNSS receiver in the field during flight tests — fast, thoughtful, autonomous, and a clear communicator. ### What You'll Do - **Platform Technical Direction**: Guide the technical direction of our UAS platforms end-to-end, working alongside our engineering and research teams: requirements setting, configuration definition, aircraft design, build, first flight, and qualification. - **Propulsion & Environmental Performance Modeling**: Build and maintain performance, sizing, and stability models that translate our operating conditions — including wind and gust environments — into motor RPM and torque requirements, and use those models to drive propulsion and powertrain component selection. - **Component Qualification**: Evaluate and qualify candidate motors, propellers, ESCs, and battery systems against real endurance, thermal, and margin requirements. - **GNC Ownership & Tuning**: Own GNC across our rotorcraft and fixed-wing platforms: control architecture, gain tuning, estimator configuration, and sensor selection — achieving tight, reliable tuning across the full flight envelope, including in wind. - **Flight Test**: Design and execute flight test campaigns, including writing test plans and cards, integrating additional instrumentation, risk identification and mitigation, envelope expansion, log analysis, and reporting results back to our design team. - **Testing & QA Leadership**: Lead and mentor the testing and quality assurance team, owning QA processes and standards across flight test and vehicle qualification. ### What We're Looking For - Bachelor's in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent demonstrated experience. - 5+ years developing unmanned aircraft, with at least one platform you took from a blank sheet to a flying, qualified vehicle. - Experience with aircraft sizing and performance analysis: energy budgets, hover and cruise power, disk loading, endurance and range prediction. - Demonstrated ability to model motor RPM and torque requirements against real environmental conditions (wind, gusts) and translate those into propulsion sizing and selection decisions. - Hands-on GNC experience, including PID tuning on multirotor or fixed-wing aircraft, with a track record of tuning vehicles to fly reliably in demanding conditions. - Deep working knowledge of PX4 or ArduPilot. - Experience writing and executing structured flight test campaigns, including envelope expansion on a new airframe. - Experience leading or building out a testing and quality assurance function or team. - FAA Part 107 certificate; experience operating under waivers and BVLOS preferred. - Willingness to deploy to the field for extended periods, including OCONUS