Lead Aeromechanical Engineer

About Askari Defense

Modern warfare is dictated by robotics. Autonomous bombing drones and robotic ground systems are reshaping every battlefield on Earth. Any nation that cannot stop them loses.

Askari develops high-performance, fully-autonomous kinetic intercept systems that counter unmanned aerial and robotic threats in the world's most demanding operational environments. We build deployable systems for real-world constraints, urgent missions, and operators who cannot wait years for capability, and are continuously evolving our systems because the robotic threat evolves daily.

We are a tight team of top engineers and scientists from Skydio, Hermeus, Near Earth Autonomy, Area-I/Anduril, Raytheon, Sandia National Laboratories, and GTRI. We work directly with elite end-users, turning emerging battlefield requirements into rugged, scalable, mission-ready defenses.

Come build alongside elite engineers on a generational mission to defend the Western world. Candidly, we hold ourselves to an exceptionally high bar: the work is demanding, the pace is intense, and the mission requires people willing to go all in. For the right person, it will be more rewarding than any previous job. Askari is a place for builders serious about mastery, ownership, exponential growth, and delivering capability when it matters most.

As warfare becomes increasingly robotic, distributed, and fast-moving, the defense industrial base needs a new model: Askari is defining that model.

If protecting humanity from the coming age of robotic warfare is the mission you have been waiting for, this is where you do it.

About the role

This role is designed for a lead aeromechanical engineer who can own the analysis, design, build, and flight validation of our interceptor airframe.

You will lead holistic vehicle performance trade studies across aerodynamics, structures, thermal, power systems, and vibration, converge on the optimal full-system design, and physically translate performance and aerodynamic targets into a real, manufacturable airframe through CAD, prototyping, test, and flight.

This role is for an engineer who is both a performance aerodynamicist and a hands-on builder: someone who can derive the right vehicle from first principles and then go build it. You should flourish in the early ambiguity of a clean-sheet program, working from first principles to cut through the noise and quickly distill the few requirements that actually matter.

Above all, we are looking for a track record of novel airframe design. You have personally taken a flying system from concept and trade study through design, build, flight, and validated performance against your predictions and modeling. This is the single most important thing we are looking for.

You will start as the primary individual contributor on the airframe and grow a team underneath you as the program scales. You will work across the rotorcraft, GNC, perception, and electrical teams to integrate their subsystems into a coherent, flight-proven vehicle.

We are looking for evidence-driven engineers: individuals who prioritize physical reality over opinion, use first-principles analysis to drive design decisions, and close the loop between prediction, test, flight data, and the next vehicle.

What you'll do

You will own the interceptor airframe end to end, from clean-sheet performance analysis and ideation through CAD, prototyping, test, and flight. You will work across the rotorcraft, GNC, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams, but the airframe architecture, performance trades, and physical vehicle design are yours to drive.

You will focus on problems in all of the following areas:

• Clean-Sheet Airframe Ownership: Own the interceptor airframe end to end, from multi-domain optimization and analysis through ideation, CAD, prototyping, test, and flight.
• Vehicle Performance Trade Studies: Run holistic vehicle performance trade studies across aerodynamics, structures, thermal, power systems, including motors, propellers, and batteries, and vibration to optimize for the best full-system design.
• Manufacturable Airframe Design: Translate performance and aerodynamic targets into a manufacturable physical airframe, accounting for fabrication techniques and their tradeoffs.
• Aerodynamic & Aerostructural Analysis: Perform CFD, aerodynamic analysis, and aerostructural analysis to predict performance and validate the airframe under real flight loads.
• Rapid Prototyping & Test: Prototype and test rapidly, then measure flight and test data against predicted performance to close the loop and deliver the next vehicle.
• Subsystem Integration: Integrate subsystems from the rotorcraft, GNC, perception, and electrical teams into a coherent, high-performance airframe.
• Analysis Tooling: Build and grow analysis tooling, including leveraging AI/LLMs for speed, that deepens in fidelity as the system matures and its dynamics are better understood.
• Technical Leadership: Grow and lead a small airframe team over time while remaining the primary technical owner and a deeply capable individual contributor.

Basic Qualifications

• Flying-System Ownership: You have personally brought a flying system from concept and performance trade study through design, build, flight test, and validation of real-world performance against predictions. This is non-negotiable.
• Experience: 6+ years of professional or equivalent hands-on experience in airframe, air vehicle, or aeromechanical design and analysis, including serious hobbyist and personal-build experience, which we weight heavily.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline, or equivalent demonstrated ability.
• CAD: Strong proficiency in 3D CAD for airframe design, including NX, Fusion, CATIA, or related tools.
• Aerodynamic & Structural Analysis: Strong proficiency in CFD and/or aerodynamic analysis, and in structural analysis of aerodynamic loads on an airframe, including Ansys, OpenFOAM, or related tools.
• Multi-Domain Optimization: Experience at the intersection of aerodynamics and mechanical/structural design.
• Hands-On Fabrication: Extensive hands-on experience building, prototyping, and tinkering with physical hardware, including additive/subtractive manufacturing, composites, thermoplastics, metal forming, or related fabrication methods.
• First-Principles Analysis: A first-principles approach to analysis, with the instinct to drive toward higher-fidelity modeling as the system becomes better understood.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work across GNC, rotorcraft, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams to understand and integrate subsystem needs.
• Travel: Ability to travel as needed to support field and flight testing.
• Mission Cadence: Willingness to work long hours and weekends as necessary to support mission-critical milestones.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience in any of the following areas is a plus:

• Education: Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• Airframe Design: Multirotor and/or fixed-wing airframe design experience.
• Racing Drone & Multirotor Design: Racing-drone or multirotor-specific design experience.
• Rapid Prototyping: Hands-on rapid-prototyping fluency, including familiarity with additive and subtractive fabrication techniques, their tradeoffs, and high-level material properties.
• Analysis Tooling: Experience building supporting analysis tooling, including leveraging AI/LLMs, that grows as subsystem and full-system dynamics are exposed.
• Team Leadership: Light managerial or team-lead experience.
• Defense & Aerospace Vehicles: Experience developing fielded defense or aerospace vehicles where flight performance and speed matter more than presentation-quality CAD.

This position may involve access to technology, material, technical data, defense articles, or information subject to U.S. export-control laws, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), and applicable contract requirements. Assignment to covered work is contingent upon the company’s ability to verify that the candidate is authorized to receive access to such items or information, including by qualifying as a “U.S. person” as defined in 22 C.F.R. § 120.62, or through any required export-control authorization, notice, approval, or access-control process.