---
title: 'Systems Engineer at Swarm Aero'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/systems-engineer-swarm-aero-california-8be87vvhg1xa'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-16'
---

# Systems Engineer at Swarm Aero

- **Company:** Swarm Aero
- **Location:** California
- **Compensation:** $140k–$200k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-10-15
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/swarmaero/f950d9ab-8568-48b9-a0b0-b9c3559b73d3

## 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.

Our aircraft will operate in non-segregated airspace, over populated areas, and in proximity to civilian aircraft, other swarming assets, terrain, and airborne intruders including threats. We need someone who can support the architecture that holds it all together, from requirements through integration and flight.

## What You'll Do

- Maintain and refine the system architecture, translating mission and operational requirements into clear technical specifications
- Focus in one of several domains including avionics, flight controls, propulsion, landing, software, mission systems, and separation from traffic, terrain, or weather
- Develop and maintain system requirements, interface control documents (ICDs), and functional decomposition across aircraft subsystems
- Lead cross-discipline integration to ensure that subsystem interfaces are well-defined and validated
- Develop and implement the digital thread that supports configuration management
- Perform system-level trade studies and participate in design reviews to drive architecture decisions that balance performance, risk, schedule, and mass constraints
- Support hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and software-in-the-loop (SIL) integration testing including investigation and resolution of anomalies
- Coordinate with ground and flight test teams to define system verification plans and close requirements through analysis and test artifacts
- Identify, track, and mitigate technical risk across the program lifecycle, escalating issues with data-driven recommendations
- Contribute to airworthiness and flight authorization documentation

## What We're Looking For

- 7+ years of systems engineering experience on aerospace, defense, or UAS platforms
- Familiarity with authoring, negotiating, managing, and maintaining system requirements using modern digital tools (e.g. Jama, Polarion, JIRA, etc.) for software and hardware
- Ability to write clear, verifiable, and testable system requirements using industry-standard patterns
- Strong command of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) principles including modeling, analysis, and simulation with digital connections to requirements
- Deep experience with systems modeling using SysML (e.g. Cameo)
- Hands-on experience driving integration across multi-disciplinary hardware and software teams
- Experience maintaining configuration control and digital continuity across models, requirements, and verification artifacts
- Familiarity with systems verification and validation methodologies (test, analysis, inspection, demonstration) including digital traceability to requirements
- Ability to define, validate, refine, and verify requirements and system architectures
- US person status required

## Nice to Have

- Background in flight control, avionics, or propulsion subsystem integration
- Experience with ARP4754 in a vehicle or platform development program
- Exposure to defense programs, military airworthiness, or flight authorization processes including MIL-HDBK-516
- Active security clearance

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

- [Software Engineer, Real-Time Generalist](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-real-time-generalist-swarm-aero-san-francisco-5z37k7re8vjg) — San Francisco, CA
- [Quality Engineering Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/quality-engineering-lead-swarm-aero-fayetteville-pmv0w473zr2q) — Fayetteville
- [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