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2x Aerospace Founder | Building the physical internet

Hop Aero is a venture-backed startup building the physical internet. Our mission is to enable resilient global logistics to protect and improve our way of life.

Our founding team has prior experience founding a satellite startup and taking it to orbit, launching 20+ F9's at SpaceX and has led engineering teams at the world's most advanced aerospace organizations.

About the role

The Lead Systems Engineer will play a foundational role in the development of our early vehicles and shaping Hop Aero's long-term roadmap. This is a broad and high-responsibility role, combining technical leadership, systems architecture, program execution, and customer interaction— particularly with government stakeholders.

This role is for an experienced, all-rounder engineer with a strong background in system architecture and specific disciplines (systems engineering, GNC, flight dynamics, hypersonics/re-entry), and demonstrable experience across the full lifecycle (cradle to grave) of aerospace hardware.

There's flexibility in this role – as the company evolves, so too will our needs. Our aim is to ensure that the role and person can evolve to meet these changing requirements.

Job Description

• Ownership of the system architecture and design of our current vehicle under development.
• Develop future vehicle concepts aligned with mission requirements, unit economics, and business goals.
• Lead vehicle-level systems engineering efforts across all subsystems on our current vehicle
• Define and manage system budgets (mass, power, thermal, cost, BOM, etc.)
• Ensure interfaces and integration points across subsystems are clearly defined and managed
• Define technical roadmaps and development plans for each major system
• Plan tasks and delegate to relevant team leads.
• Interface directly with team leads, suppliers (and other relevant externals) to ensure delivery timelines
• Support preparation of proposals for SBIR, STTR, and other DoD opportunities
• Report technical progress and participate in reviews with government stakeholders
• Help align engineering deliverables with customer expectations
• Work closely with CTO on program execution, and with CEO on technical roadmap and milestones
• Participate in early customer discovery and feedback integration into technical planning
• Stock options package on top of base salary

Requirements

• 10+ years in aerospace vehicle development
• Demonstrated experience as a lead engineer or similar for complex flight hardware. Cradle-to-grave experience with a vehicle/program is a huge plus.
• Experience working on government-funded programs (preferably with AFRL or similar)
• Willingness to get their hands dirty and join us in the desert when needed.
• Expertise in systems architecture and systems engineering. Experience with MBSE tools is a huge plus.
• Creation and management of BOM and mass, cost, power budgets.
• Task planning, team coordination, and supplier management
• Strong knowledge of hypersonic/re-entry vehicles and systems. Hands-on experience with such vehicles a huge plus.
• Proficient in CAD (SolidWorks preferred but not required)
• Basic experience with structural and thermal FEA
• Familiarity with simulation tools (fluids, dynamics, impact) is a plus
• Strong foundation in guidance, navigation, and control
• Experience modeling 6-DOF flight dynamics. Ability to model aero loads.
• Familiarity with guidance laws and control system implementation (Simulink, MATLAB, C++/Python)

Must be a U.S. Person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident)

Even if you don't meet every single requirement, we'd still love to hear from you. Greatness looks different in every one of us - and we need the best tackling this problem.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Information Technology

• Industries

  Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing and Defense and Space Manufacturing

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