
Industrial Vision & Automation Engineer at Harmattan AI (Orly, France)
Harmattan AI· Orly, France·
Role details
Harmattan AI at a glance
France's first defense-tech unicorn, building attritable AI-piloted strike, interception, and ISR drones for allied militaries.
Harmattan AI is a vertically integrated defense prime building autonomous drone systems for allied militaries. It designs the full stack, from airframes and payloads to embedded compute and the autonomy algorithms that let drones sense, decide, and act at the edge without GPS or a network link, coordinated across a swarm by its mission-orchestration layer.
$242M raised · latest: Series B · $200M · January 2026 · backed by Dassault Aviation, FirstMark Capital, Atlantic, Motier Ventures
Job description
About Us
Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces. Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected.
About the Role
Within the Engineering Quality team, you will own industrial vision inspection across our production lines, from roadmap and qualification to integration on automated and manual stations. As production ramps up, you will turn today's manual controls into robust inline inspections, working hand in hand with the Industrialization & Automation, Quality and Production teams. With hardware already on site, this is a greenfield role: you will write the standard rather than inherit one, and see your programs running on a defense production line within weeks. This is a full time position based in Orly, with opportunities to grow within the organization.
Responsibilities
- Build and own the industrial vision roadmap across our production lines, and defend the associated investments.
- Audit existing cameras and programs, then establish a measured baseline of escape and false reject rates.
- Develop and deploy vision programs on real parts, tuning optics, lighting, thresholds and Edge Learning tools.
- Integrate vision on automated stations with the automation team, including triggering, PLC/IO handshake and robot guidance.
- Deploy standalone camera programs on manual stations, along with the scripting and small tooling around them.
- Define and run the qualification framework (IQ/OQ/PQ) and trace every inspection into the control plan.
- Maintain a versioned and backed up program library, with clear documentation for every deployed inspection.
- Review rejected images daily with production, separating real defects from false rejects and unblocking stations.
- Partner with R&D on design for inspectability, and with Manufacturing Systems Engineering and IT on data and network handling.
Candidate Requirements
- Educational Background: Engineering degree or equivalent, with a strong academic record.
- Vision Experience: 2+ years of practical industrial vision experience in a production environment, such as automotive, electronics, aerospace, medtech or a vision integrator.
- Technical Skills: Proficiency with at least one industrial vision platform or library, scripting skills and enough automation exposure to work with a PLC or a robot.
- Validation Rigor: Manages false rejects and escapes with data, knows that optics and lighting drive the result, and is curious about assembly (PCBA, solder joints, connectors).
- Roadmap Ownership: Able to build a plan and a standard from scratch in a greenfield environment, and to defend an investment case.
- Shop Floor Pragmatism: Designs for operators and shift reality, favors robust over elegant solutions, works autonomously and embraces a “no task is too small” mentality.
- Communication & Influence: Excellent written and verbal communication in French and English, capable of working with diverse principals, from operators on the line to senior leadership.
- Eligibility: Security clearance may be required for this role.
- Commitment: 100% dedication to Harmattan AI’s mission, vision, and ambitious growth plans, ready to go the extra mile to ensure operational excellence.
We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.
Why work at Harmattan AI
- Culture: “Elite builders” who “thrive on complexity, move with urgency, and own their work end to end.” Emphasis on purpose, technical excellence, and real‑world impact. harmattan.ai
- Values: Tackle the hardest problems, build what matters, move at the speed of relevance, and aim to redefine frontiers. harmattan.ai
- Work policy: Hybrid model with a mix of remote and on‑site; many roles are in‑office at locations in Paris, Lausanne, London, Arlington (TX), Wissous, Poland, UAE, and Morocco. builtin.com
- Engineering culture: Hands‑on development of mission‑critical autonomous systems; strong R&D focus across AI, computer vision, RF hardware, propulsion, and mission planning.
- Perks: Not explicitly listed, but the company highlights the opportunity to protect front‑line personnel and shape the future of autonomous defence.