Senior Manager, Airworthiness and Certification

Responsibilities:

Support current New Zealand CAANZ certification activities for the U.S. based aspects and lead Merlin's civil certification strategy with the FAA and other foreign authorities, serving as primary technical authority and primary liaison with regulatory authorities for U.S. certifications.
Manage all aspects of new civil certification projects: Core process standardization, A&C initial assessments, compliance strategies and A & C plans, issue papers and risk assessments, and guide the Merlin team to final compliance.
Lead and grow the Military Airworthiness and Cyber Certification teams, setting priorities, establishing and standardizing core processes, mentoring, and reviewing technical work while the team executes day-to-day military airworthiness and cyber certification activities.
Oversee the military airworthiness certification strategy for Merlin's defense programs through the Military Airworthiness Lead, serving as an escalation point to mitigate technical, resource, and capability risks.
Oversee closure of Military Certification Review Items (MCRIs), Issue Papers, and related airworthiness documentation through the Military Airworthiness Lead, ensuring compliance with MIL-HDBK-516C, MIL-STD-882E, applicable DEF STANs, and JSSG guidance.
Oversee the cyber security certification strategy across civil and military programs through the Cyber Certification Lead, driving integration of airborne cyber security assurance activities with existing safety and development assurance processes and serve as an escalation point to mitigate technical, resource, capability risks.
Partner with the process assurance manager and engineering discipline leads to integrate civil certification, military airworthiness, and cyber security certification processes with Merlin's broader process assurance and configuration management framework.
Drive continuous improvement of civil certification, military airworthiness, and cyber security certification processes based on audit findings, program lessons learned, and evolving regulatory and DoD guidance.
Report to the VP of Airworthiness & certification on program health for civil certification and military airworthiness projects as well as the process improvement roadmap across all three disciplines.
Build scalable, repeatable civil certification, military airworthiness, and cyber security frameworks to ensure the success of all three functions as Merlin adds civil and defense programs to their portfolio.

Qualifications:

Direct, hands-on experience achieving FAA Part 23 and/or Part 25 type certificates, amendments, or Supplemental Type Certificates, including EASA CS-23/CS-25 or other foreign validation experience.
Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field; master’s degree in a related field preferred.
Minimum of 12+ years of aerospace certification experience, including significant exposure to FAA and foreign certification processes and 5+ years of experience leading or managing a team of engineers, including hiring, mentoring, and performance management across technical disciplines.
Proven ability to lead certification efforts for complex new or novel aircraft technologies: interfacing directly with regulatory authorities and managing certification projects from establishment of certification basis, resolution of issue papers and risk assessments, through certification closure or airworthiness approval.
Strong leadership and project management capabilities in cross-functional environments.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to produce high-quality certification documentation.
Experience with designee appointment and management processes and Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) management.
Strong working knowledge of 14 CFR Part 21, 23, 25, and 183.
Familiarity in 14 CFR Part 43 and 145 procedures and Part 91 and 135 operations.
Working knowledge of:
Systems engineering principles — requirements decomposition, V&V planning, and configuration management.
Software and hardware assurance standards (DO-178C, DO-254, MIL-STD-882).
Safety assessment methodologies: FHA, FMEA/FMECA, FTA, common cause analysis.
Airworthiness standards relevant to military platforms — MIL-SPECs, MIL-STDs, JSSG-2001, and MIL-HDBK-516.
DoD cybersecurity and information assurance frameworks (e.g., RMF, NIST SP 800-53, CMMC) as they apply to airborne systems and Controlled Unclassified Information on defense programs.
Airborne cyber security assurance standards (DO-326A/ED-202A, DO-356A/ED-203A) and how cyber security risk assessments integrate with ARP4754A/ARP4761A safety processes
Emerging aerospace technologies such as UAVs or advanced air mobility.

Nice to Have:

Experience with ASTM F3230 and F3061 consensus standards, or other Part 23 / consensus-based certification bases relevant to small and autonomous aircraft.
Background in autonomous or unmanned aviation systems (UAS/UAV).
Prior experience in military operational environments.
Familiarity with machine learning-based software assurance and its intersection with cyber security certification.
Experience building or scaling certification functions in a growing company.
Experience in AI applications used in standardization of processes, procedures and requirements.