---
title: 'Quality Engineering Lead at Swarm Aero'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/quality-engineering-lead-swarm-aero-fayetteville-pmv0w473zr2q'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-16'
---

# Quality Engineering Lead at Swarm Aero

- **Company:** Swarm Aero
- **Location:** Fayetteville
- **Compensation:** $115k–$165k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-13
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/swarmaero/a43cc017-bc8b-41dd-8229-4b9460c64d7e

## Job description

Swarm Aero is redefining air power, building the largest swarming UAV and the most versatile swarming aircraft network in the world. The company is moving quickly to launch the first aircraft designed specifically for swarming, as well as the Command & Control software to mobilize swarms of thousands of heterogeneous autonomous assets and empower human operators to achieve superhuman results. The team has created and exited multiple startups, negotiated defense deals worth billions of dollars, and designed and built 30+ novel aircraft, with aerospace experience from Scaled Composites, Airbus, Archer Aviation, Blue Origin, and Boom Supersonic.

We’re building a new kind of aircraft, and we’re building the factories to produce it. We’re hiring a Quality Engineering Lead to help turn early builds into a repeatable, high-rate manufacturing operation where quality is designed in from the start. This is a chance to shape the floor while the decisions still matter. You’ll work across design, manufacturing, materials and processes, and operations to define how quality works across the company. You’ll be our first quality hire, building the team, the system, and the certifications from the ground up.

## What you’ll do

- Build and lead the Quality Engineering department: hire the team, set priorities, and define how quality engages with every part of the build
- Design and implement our quality management system, and lead the company through ISO 9001 and AS9100 certification
- Define quality control processes and procedures across the company, from incoming material through final acceptance
- Integrate quality requirements into production processes and workflows alongside Manufacturing Engineering and Materials and Process Engineering
- Establish supplier quality requirements, including source inspection, first article inspection (AS9102), and supplier qualification
- Stand up the core quality toolkit: nonconformance and material review, corrective and preventive action, root cause analysis, and configuration of quality records
- Identify bottlenecks early, test improvements on the floor, and use production data to improve throughput, quality, and predictability
- Partner directly with the people designing and building the aircraft to solve problems before they become permanent features of the manufacturing and quality processes

## What you bring

- Quality engineering experience in aerospace, automotive, composites, or another complex hardware manufacturing environment
- Hands-on experience establishing facility certifications such as ISO 9001, AS9100, and/or Nadcap
- Experience with composite materials and processes, including the inspection methods used to verify them
- Experience building and leading a quality engineering team
- Working knowledge of core quality tools such as SPC, FMEA, root cause analysis, and first article inspection
- The judgment to put structure in place where it helps, without slowing down the team doing the work

Especially valuable

- Standing up quality for a new facility or a greenfield production line
- Scaling composite production from prototype to rate
- Supplier quality experience across a growing, multi-tier supply base
- ASQ certification (CQE or CMQ/OE)

## Requirements

- Must be a U.S. person due to ITAR requirements
- Able to work on-site in Fayetteville, AR

You’ll have unusual ownership here. The choices you make will shape how we build our first aircraft and the hundreds that follow.

ITAR requirement To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Swarm Aero is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse backgrounds and experiences and make employment decisions without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability.

## What We Offer

- Meaningful equity in a high-growth defense technology company
- Competitive base salary commensurate with experience
- Medical, dental, vision, and 401k
- PTO and paid sick leave
- Monthly wellness stipend
- Daily catered lunch (office)
- Paid parental leave
- Direct impact on a critical national security mission
- A world-class team of engineers and operators solving genuinely hard problems

## About Swarm Aero

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Swarm Aero builds large, swarming uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) for defense, logistics, disaster response, and sensing missions, controlled by a proprietary mission-level autonomy platform.
- **Entity Type**: Private startup (Series A, $35M raised in March 2026)
- **Headquarters**: Oxnard, California, USA (with a manufacturing facility in Fayetteville, Arkansas)
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Founders**: Danny Goodman (CEO), Oliver Palmer (COO), Peter Kalogiannis (Co-Founder & Chief Engineer, departed April 2026)

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Defense & aerospace, UAV swarm systems, advanced manufacturing
- **Target customers**: Government/military (B2G) – specifically U.S. Department of Defense and allied forces; also logistics, disaster response, and environmental monitoring agencies
- **Mission statement**: “Building the largest UAV swarm on the planet.” (LinkedIn tagline)

## Products & Services
- **Swarm-Scale Command & Control (C2) Platform**: Browser-based, platform-agnostic UI that enables small teams to coordinate thousands of uncrewed vehicles in communications-limited, contested environments.
- **Universal Swarm Node (UAV)**: A Group 5 drone designed from the ground up for swarming – not expendable (like a Switchblade) nor exquisite (like an F-35), but recoverable and mass-producible.
- **Mission-Level Autonomy Software**: Translates user intent into vehicle-level behaviors that update in real-time as the swarm detects changing conditions; includes collaborative autonomy for superhuman agility.
- **Manufacturing as a Feature**: High-rate composite manufacturing processes adapted from other industries to achieve unprecedented airframe throughput (targeting 1,000+ units per year).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $35M (Series A closed March 2026; prior $2M pre-seed in 2022 and $22M seed in 2023)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Two Sigma Ventures, Silent Ventures (co-leads Series A), Construct Capital, Alumni Ventures, Founders Fund
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount: 50 employees as of mid-2026 (+94.6% YoY)
  - Opened a manufacturing facility in Fayetteville, Arkansas in early 2026
  - Plans to more than double headcount by end of 2026 (per Axios)
  - First flight of the Group 5 drone expected within two years

## Competitive Advantages
- **Team expertise**: Leadership collectively has 100+ years of uniformed U.S. military service, built 30+ novel aircraft, and contributed to the highest production rate composite aircraft and rocket engines ever.
- **Manufacturing moat**: Concurrent design of factory and aircraft enables rapid scaling from prototype to 1,000+ units; “two-thirds of the cost of building a new aircraft is generally headcount” – Swarm designs for low-cost, high-rate production.
- **Software-defined swarm**: Browser-based C2 and edge-compute sensor mesh bring cloud-like agility to contested environments, allowing small teams to control massive swarms.
- **Differentiation**: Neither expendable (like loitering munitions) nor exquisite (like stealth bombers) – a recoverable, affordable mass that overmatches adversaries through numbers.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale manufacturing**: The new Arkansas facility is central to achieving high-rate composite production and reducing unit cost.
- **Headcount growth**: Aggressive hiring across engineering, manufacturing, and operations; 20 active job postings as of mid-2026.
- **First flight milestone**: Complete design, build, and test of the Group 5 drone within the next two years to enter operational service.
- **Multi-domain expansion**: Plans to deploy a combination of air, sea, and ground assets tailored to diverse missions (cargo, fire suppression, adaptive sensing, resilient communications).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “Move Fast and Make Things” – a startup ethos focused on rapid design-build-test cycles and real-world impact in defense tech.
- **Work environment**: Likely on-site given manufacturing and hardware focus; offices in Oxnard, CA (HQ) and Fayetteville, AR (factory).
- **Team**: Work alongside veterans of Scaled Composites, Anduril, Northrop Grumman, and leaders who have built five billion-dollar startups and software with 4.6B combined active users.
- **Perks**: Not publicly detailed, but typical for well-funded defense startups (competitive compensation, equity, mission-driven work). The company uses modern tools (Kubernetes, Docker, Python, MATLAB, etc.) and offers roles from engineering to program management.
- **Growth opportunity**: Early-stage company with strong funding and a clear path to scale – employees can have outsized impact on product and manufacturing processes.

## Sources
1. [Swarm Aero Website](https://www.swarm.aero/)
2. [Swarm Aero LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/swarm-aero)
3. [Craft.co Company Profile](https://craft.co/swarm-aero)
4. [Axios – Exclusive: Big-drone builder Swarm Aero raises $35 million](https://www.axios.com/2026/03/11/swarm-aero-seriesa-drone-factory)
5. [Swarm Aero Team Page](https://www.swarm.aero/team-2)

## Other roles at Swarm Aero

- [Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/systems-engineer-swarm-aero-california-8be87vvhg1xa) — California
- [Software Engineer, Real-Time Generalist](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-real-time-generalist-swarm-aero-san-francisco-5z37k7re8vjg) — San Francisco, CA
- [Staff Software Engineer, Real-Time Systems](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-real-time-systems-swarm-aero-remote-qaa3zbaht54y)
- [Software Engineer, Real-Time Systems (Early Career)](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career-swarm-aero-remote-etf6jg6nqawp)
- [Software Engineer, Autonomy](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-autonomy-swarm-aero-remote-8tmzhrrhz25b)
- [Senior Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-forward-deployed-engineer-swarm-aero-remote-81nveh0d3ybx)
- [Non-Destructive Inspection Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/non-destructive-inspection-lead-swarm-aero-fayetteville-216wj8aww8nx) — Fayetteville
- [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-swarm-aero-remote-0ezqspwz8w7w)
- [Staff Software Engineer, Autonomy](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-autonomy-swarm-aero-remote-n3adrczb5mkr)
- [Avionics Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/avionics-engineer-swarm-aero-oxnard-skj4y2qyrw27) — Oxnard, CA