Flight Test Engineer at Castelion in Torrance, CA

Job description

• As a Flight Test Engineer at Castelion, you will be working within the Test Operations and Logistics team to execute a rapid iterative development and test campaign. You will work alongside a test director to plan and execute flight tests, following best practices and processes to document and communicate to internal and external stakeholders. This role is hands-on and collaborative, working closely with engineering design teams to ensure flight tests provide the insight in vehicle performance required to rapidly close on a production design.

Responsibilities

• Develop, coordinate and execute test procedures and instrumentation/test setup diagrams for flight tests.
• Support hardware integration of avionics, telemetry, propulsion, and flight control systems into flight test articles and ground test setups (vehicle/hardware in the loop).
• Oversee pre-flight integration, ground control setup, instrumentation setup, and configuration control of test articles.
• Participate in flight readiness reviews, test planning meetings and technical interchange sessions with internal and government stakeholders.
• Ensure proper documentation of test anomalies, root cause investigations, and corrective action implementation.
• Support real-time mission control operations, including monitoring and troubleshooting telemetry data streams.

Requirements

• Bachelors degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical Engineering (or related field).
• 2+ years of relevant experience in missile, rocket, or flight vehicle testing.
• Hands-on experience with flight test instrumentation, telemetry systems, and ground control stations.
• Hands-on experience with operation of ground support equipment (electrical, hydraulic and/or pneumatic).
• Exceptional attention to detail with clear written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to operate in a fast-paced, multidisciplinary test environment.
• Ability to travel domestically up to 50 percent of time.
• Active U.S. Secret (or higher) security clearance or eligibility to obtain one.
• Experience interfacing with U.S. DoD customers and government flight test organizations.
• Familiarity with MIL-STD-1553, Ethernet, and serial (CAN) communication protocols.
• Experience with command-line interface in a Linux environment.
• Experience with troubleshooting RF systems using equipment such as a spectrum analyzer.
• Experience with troubleshooting ground support equipment (electrical, hydraulic, and/or pneumatic).
• Experience with troubleshooting and repair of electrical harnesses and cabling.
• Experience with data reduction scripting tools such as MATLAB or Python.

Skills

Required

• Flight test instrumentation
• Telemetry systems
• Ground control stations
• Attention to detail
• Written and verbal communication
• Travel up to 50% domestically

Preferred

• Troubleshooting ground support equipment

Benefits

• Castelion offers a generous benefits package. Please refer to the bottom of our Careers page for more details.