Senior UAV Prototyping Engineer (all genders)

STARK is a new kind of defence technology company revolutionizing the way autonomous systems are deployed across multiple domains. We design, develop and manufacture high performance unmanned aerial and terrestrial systems that are software-defined, mass-scalable, and cost effective. This provides our operators with a decisive edge in highly contested environments.

We’re focused on delivering deployable, high-performance systems—not future promises. In a time of rising threats, STARK is bolstering the technological edge of NATO Allies and their Partners to deter aggression and defend Europe—today.

• Own the full engineering development cycle for UAV prototypes; concept, design, fabrication, integration, first flight. Independently, escalating only decisions that genuinely require sign-off above your authority.

• Make autonomous calls on airframe structures, avionic stacks, mechanisms, and ground support equipment design, selecting materials and methods based on judgment rather than waiting for direction.

• Set the technical approach when coordinating with multidisciplinary engineering groups, and resolve cross-discipline design conflicts directly rather than routing them upward.

• Lead field flight test campaigns: own go/no-go decisions, drive rapid root-cause diagnosis on anomalies or failures, and decide independently whether a fix or a redesign is warranted.

• Convert informal, tribal, or "learned in a shed" engineering knowledge into documented, repeatable processes that other engineers, including more junior ones, can follow.

• Mentor and technically unblock junior and mid-level engineers on design reviews and build problems, without requiring formal management authority to do so.

• Proactively flag technical risk, schedule risk, or process gaps to leadership before they're asked silence is not an acceptable default.

• Iterate on designs based on field and test data without needing a retrospective meeting to tell you what went wrong.

• Demonstrable track record of having owned a full engineering development cycle, concept through fielded or flight-tested prototype, independently, on at least one UAV/UGV (or comparable) platform.

• Extensive hands-on experience with composites, mechanical assemblies, robotics, and embedded hardware integration, built over years in a workshop or test environment, not from documentation alone.

• Proven judgment under ambiguity and schedule pressure: demonstrated ability to decide what's good-enough-to-test versus good-enough-to-deploy without guidance.

• Strong, independent root-cause diagnostic ability, you can look at a broken airframe or anomalous flight data and drive it to a corrective action without senior engineer input.

• Experience operating autonomously across multidisciplinary engineering teams, including resolving competing technical requirements between disciplines yourself.

• Demonstrated experience informally mentoring or technically leading other engineers, even without direct reports.

• Active A2/A3 drone pilot certification or equivalent national licence

• CAD expertise (Fusion 360, SolidWorks preferred) sufficient to set design standards or templates for others, not just iterate your own files

• Deep familiarity with flight controller ecosystems (PX4, ArduPilot, Betaflight) at debugging level, not just configuration

• Exposure to fixed-wing platforms, not just multirotor

• Background in competition, motorsport, or workshop environments that progressed into leading a build or owning a program end-to-end