Perception Hardware Integration Engineer

Perception Hardware Integration Engineer

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

About the Company

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

Role Overview

As a Perception Hardware Integration Engineer, you will own the full lifecycle of our missile seeker electro‑optical hardware system—from benchtop prototype to high‑volume production. You will integrate sensors, optics, compute modules, and thermal imaging units into flight‑ready seeker packages, ensuring precise calibration and readiness for rapid test cycles.

This role is highly hands‑on, fast‑paced, and ideal for engineers who thrive in hardware‑intensive environments with continuous iteration and real flight testing.

Key Responsibilities

• 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, bad‑pixel mapping, and boresight alignment across multiple seeker systems in parallel.
• Participate in bi‑weekly flight tests in Mojave, analyzing flight data and driving rapid mechanical/optical redesign cycles.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional engineering teams to ensure environmental qualification, reliability, and production readiness.

Required Qualifications

• 8–15 years of hands‑on integration experience with electro‑optical 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 bring‑up.
• Comfortable working on‑site in El Segundo/Los Angeles with regular desert travel.
• US Citizen or Green Card (no visa sponsorship).

Technical Environment

• Electro‑optical 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