Lead RF Engineer - Electronic Warfare at Harmattan AI (Paris, France)
Harmattan AI· Paris, 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
Summary
Lead the Electronic Warfare Engineering Team to deliver EW and signal intelligence systems from concept to deployment. Oversee system architecture, cross-functional coordination, and validation while ensuring robustness and reliability of defense systems.
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
As an Electronic Warfare Team Lead, you will own the delivery of our electronic warfare and signal intelligence systems - from concept to field deployment. You will work hand-in-hand with project managers and technical leads to translate mission needs into system-level designs, coordinate multidisciplinary engineering teams, and ensure overall system performance, robustness, and reliability. The capability to detect, investigate, and exploit system vulnerabilities.
Responsibilities
- Electronic Warfare Team: Build, maintain and manage a cross disciplinary Electronic Warfare Engineering Team.
- Electronic Warfare Systems and Technology watch: Drive architecture and implementation of Electronic Warfare Systems. Ensure state of the art knowledge in EW/SIGINT.
- Technical Coordination: Lead cross-functional design across mechanical, electrical, software, GNC, and ML teams.
- Trade-Off & Design Analysis: Conduct feasibility studies, trade-off analyses, and system-level simulations to guide technical choices.
- Integration & Validation: Oversee system integration, prototyping, and validation, ensuring performance targets are achieved.
- System Reviews: Drive design and architecture reviews, maintaining consistency between requirements, design, and testing.
- Continuous Improvement: Implement processes to enhance requirements traceability, system documentation, and validation workflows.
Candidate Requirements
- 10+ years of experience in RF system engineering of Radio/Radar/GNSS and other Sensors within robotics, aerospace, or defense sectors.
- Experience in Technology leadership in EW/SIGINT is a strong plus
- Experience in Team leadership is a bonus, but not required
- MSc in Engineering; PhD is a plus.
- Proven experience leading full system lifecycles (concept → prototype → validation).
- Strong background in RF, GNSS and Radar system architecture, requirements engineering, and system level trade-off analysis.
- RF Signal Intelligence gathering and analysis for classification and AI training.
- Broad engineering culture with understanding of mechanical, electrical, and embedded systems.
- Experience coordinating multi-disciplinary teams and managing technical interfaces.
- Rigorous, structured, and mission-driven mindset with strong analytical skills.
- Excellent communication and documentation abilities.
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.