Senior/Principal Lead Delivery Engineer — Defense

YOUR IMPACT

As the Senior/Principal Lead Delivery Engineer for Defense, you own customer outcomes for Luminary's defense and government engagements — prime contractors, DoD agencies, defense innovation organizations, and national labs. You are a dual hat — project manager and product manager — leading a matrixed value delivery team across Applications Engineering, Applied AI/ML, Data & Platform, and product engineering. You operate fluently in environments with security, compliance, and ITAR/EAR requirements, and you partner with the GTM team on program engagement and expansion.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own end-to-end customer outcomes across new and existing defense and government accounts — prime contractors, DoD agencies (DARPA, AFRL, NRL, Navy), and national labs — from discovery through model deployment and embedding into program workflows.
• Author SOWs and RFP/RFI responses that navigate government contracting items — milestones, deliverables, IP, and export control — and own delivery accountability against them.
• Lead a value delivery team in a matrix structure: Applications Engineers, Applied AI/ML Scientists, Data and Platform Engineers, and selected product engineers. Set technical direction, sequence the work, remove blockers.
• Operate as a dual hat — project manager and product manager — running execution while shaping the product intuition for what to build next.
• Stay hands-on-keyboard where it matters. Debug a model, restructure a data pipeline, prototype a workflow integration.
• Embrace co-engineering: work side-by-side with customer engineers on use case development, including at customer sites where required.
• Partner with the GTM team on new program engagement and account growth.
• Navigate compliance: ITAR/EAR, CMMC, DFARS, and FedRAMP awareness in delivery planning and customer dialogue.
• Bring market and customer signal back to Product and Research, shaping Luminary's roadmap for defense-specific requirements including security, compliance, and certification.

WHAT YOU BRING

• 5–10 years of experience in a technical role in defense, government R&D, prime contractor engineering, or defense-adjacent enterprise software. Principal-level candidates have an extensive track record in defense. 
• Multi-physics fluency across defense engineering disciplines: structural mechanics, aeroelasticity, thermal-structural analysis, propulsion, signal integrity, electromagnetics, or multi-physics simulation.
• U.S. Person required; active or obtainable Secret/TS-SCI clearance preferred.
• Familiarity with government contracting, ITAR/EAR, and defense acquisition frameworks.
• Strong hands-on engineering chops — Python, scripting, simulation tools, and AI/ML workflows.
• Working knowledge of AI/ML applied to engineering — surrogate modeling, neural operators, physics-informed ML, structural digital twins.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional technical teams without direct authority.
• Product instinct and customer-facing presence; comfortable with chief engineers, program managers, and government technical leadership.
• Self-starter, persistent through iteration, willing to travel 10–25% to customer sites.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical Engineering, or related discipline.
• Prior experience at prime contractors (e.g., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing Defense, Raytheon/RTX, General Dynamics, L3Harris) or defense labs (DARPA, AFRL, NRL, Sandia, Los Alamos).
• Active security clearance.
• Experience with digital twin programs for airframe, propulsion, or fleet health management applications.
• Track record of deploying ML or simulation tooling into program environments under compliance constraints.