Deputy Chief Engineer, X-BAT

Seattle · USD 250,000-350,000 / year · 12+ years experience · Onsite · Posted Sep 25, 2026

At a glance

The Deputy Chief Engineer for X-BAT serves as the primary technical deputy to the Air Vehicle Lead, overseeing the design, development, integration, test, and maturation of the X-BAT air vehicle.
This role involves maintaining technical integrity across multidisciplinary engineering teams while balancing performance, safety, cost, schedule, and mission requirements.

Serve as the primary technical deputy to the X-BAT Air Vehicle Lead, translating program objectives into engineering priorities.
Maintain the integrity of the air vehicle’s technical baseline, including requirements, architecture, interfaces, and airworthiness evidence.
Lead day-to-day integration of engineering activities across aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, avionics, and autonomy.
Drive aircraft-level technical decisions and trade studies grounded in first-principles analysis.
Establish and maintain a disciplined technical-risk process with identified owners and mitigation plans.
Lead major technical and design reviews to progress the aircraft through fabrication, test, and production.
Partner with Program Management to align technical scope with schedule, budget, and customer commitments.
Work with Manufacturing and Supply Chain to ensure designs are producible and scalable.
Partner with Test and Flight Operations to define verification strategies and test readiness criteria.
Lead rapid root-cause investigations for complex aircraft-level problems.

Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, or Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
12+ years of progressive experience developing complex aircraft, military aerospace systems, or autonomous aircraft.
Demonstrated technical leadership on an aircraft-development program in a role such as Chief Engineer, Deputy Chief Engineer, or Air Vehicle Lead.
Broad understanding of aircraft design and integration across multiple engineering disciplines.
Experience taking an aircraft or complex aerospace system through multiple lifecycle stages.
Experience establishing and managing system requirements, technical baselines, and design reviews.
Demonstrated ability to make high-quality technical decisions with incomplete information under aggressive timelines.
Strong written and verbal communication skills for executive and customer audiences.
Experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams in a fast-paced environment.
Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Engineering Management, or a related discipline.
Experience developing clean-sheet military aircraft, fighter aircraft, collaborative combat aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, or advanced VTOL platforms.
Experience with propulsion integration, flight controls, vehicle management systems, autonomy integration, low-observable aircraft, or weapons and mission-systems integration.
Experience supporting aircraft ground test, envelope expansion, developmental flight test, airworthiness, and mishap-risk reduction.
Familiarity with military airworthiness frameworks, verification and validation processes, configuration management, and model-based systems engineering.
Experience transitioning an aircraft from rapid prototype development into qualification, rate production, and operational deployment.
Experience working directly with the Department of Defense, military service customers, external suppliers, and strategic industry partners.
Background in a high-growth aerospace organization.

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