{"id":1537118,"url":"https://alion.io/job/rainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer","title":"Manager, GNC and Test Engineering","company":{"id":95757,"name":"Rainmaker","domain":"rainmaker.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/rainmaker-com","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Salt Lake City, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":90000,"max_usd":172000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":4338},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"ArduPilot","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-30T17:26:32Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-01","last_verified_at":"2026-10-06T01:43:15Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"Make it rain. Make Snow. Make Earth Habitable.\nRainmaker builds and deploys audacious technologies that work with nature to create an abundant, habitable planet. We are modernizing proven cloud-seeding science with weather-resistant UAS, radar and satellite observations, numerical weather prediction, novel sensing and validation systems, and sustainable seeding technologies. We are building an integrated system to make more freshwater available to farms, ecosystems, and communities.\nOur ambition is bold, but we pursue it with humility. We take on difficult problems in the real world with technical rigor, grit, integrity, and an openness to learning and course-correcting. We are hiring individuals with evidence of exceptional ability. If you want to build systems that endure, restore, and provide, and help deliver the future we were promised, we want to hear from you.\nMake it rain. Make Snow. Make Earth Habitable.\nRainmaker builds and deploys audacious technologies that work with nature to create an abundant, habitable planet. We are modernizing proven cloud-seeding science with weather-resistant UAS, radar and satellite observations, numerical weather prediction, novel sensing and validation systems, and sustainable seeding technologies. We are building an integrated system to make more freshwater available to farms, ecosystems, and communities.\nOur ambition is bold, but we pursue it with humility. We take on difficult problems in the real world with technical rigor, grit, integrity, and an openness to learning and course-correcting. We are hiring individuals with evidence of exceptional ability. If you want to build systems that endure, restore, and provide, and help deliver the future we were promised, we want to hear from you.\nWe're looking for a Manager, GNC and Test Engineering who has taken an unmanned aircraft from requirements through first flight and a full flight test campaign. You're equally comfortable performance-modeling a propulsion system at a desk and troubleshooting a GNSS receiver in the field during flight tests - fast, thoughtful, autonomous, and a clear communicator.\nWhat You'll Do\n\nPlatform Technical Direction: Guide the technical direction of our UAS platforms end-to-end, working alongside our engineering and research teams: requirements setting, configuration definition, aircraft design, build, first flight, and qualification.\n\nPropulsion & Environmental Performance Modeling: Build and maintain performance, sizing, and stability models that translate our operating conditions - including wind and gust environments - into motor RPM and torque requirements, and use those models to drive propulsion and powertrain component selection.\n\nComponent Qualification: Evaluate and qualify candidate motors, propellers, ESCs, and battery systems against real endurance, thermal, and margin requirements.\n\nGNC Ownership & Tuning: Own GNC across our rotorcraft and fixed-wing platforms: control architecture, gain tuning, estimator configuration, and sensor selection - achieving tight, reliable tuning across the full flight envelope, including in wind.\n\nFlight Test: Design and execute flight test campaigns, including writing test plans and cards, integrating additional instrumentation, risk identification and mitigation, envelope expansion, log analysis, and reporting results back to our design team.\n\nTesting & QA Leadership: Lead and mentor the testing and quality assurance team, owning QA processes and standards across flight test and vehicle qualification.\n\nWhat We're Looking For\n\nBachelor's in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent demonstrated experience.\n\n5+ years developing unmanned aircraft, with at least one platform you took from a blank sheet to a flying, qualified vehicle.\n\nExperience with aircraft sizing and performance analysis: energy budgets, hover and cruise power, disk loading, endurance and range prediction.\n\nDemonstrated ability to model motor RPM and torque requirements against real environmental conditions (wind, gusts) and translate those into propulsion sizing and selection decisions.\n\nHands-on GNC experience, including PID tuning on multirotor or fixed-wing aircraft, with a track record of tuning vehicles to fly reliably in demanding conditions.\n\nDeep working knowledge of PX4 or ArduPilot.\n\nExperience writing and executing structured flight test campaigns, including envelope expansion on a new airframe.\n\nExperience leading or building out a testing and quality assurance function or team.\n\nFAA Part 107 certificate; experience operating under waivers and BVLOS preferred.\n\nWillingness to deploy to the field for extended periods, including OCONUS\n\nSupporting the Rainmakers behind the mission\nMaking earth more habitable is ambitious work and we want the people doing it to feel supported:\nA stake in what we build: Meaningful stock options and the opportunity to help shape Rainmaker as an early member of the team.\n\nSupport for your health: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family.\n\nAn investment in your future: A 401(k) with employer matching to help you build long-term savings.\n\nTime to recharge: Unlimited PTO for rest, exploration, and the people and pursuits that matter to you plus a generous paid holiday schedule.\n\nTime for a growing family: Paid parental leave for both parents to welcome a child and spend time together.\n\nLunch together: Daily lunch provided at our El Segundo headquarters, giving Rainmakers a chance to share a meal and connect with teammates.\n\nHelp making the move: Relocation assistance for eligible roles to support your transition to Rainmaker.\n\nRainmaker Is An Equal Opportunity Employer\nEmployment decisions are made without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law.\nRainmaker provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities and for other protected reasons as required by law. If you need accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, contact . Requests for accommodation will be handled confidentially to the extent reasonably possible.\nData Privacy\nCalifornia applicants can review our California Applicant Privacy Notice. The notice explains the personal information we collect, how we use it, how long we retain it, and the privacy rights that may be available.\nE-Verify\nRainmaker participates in E-Verify for U.S. Employees. To learn more, including your rights and responsibilities, please visit E-verify.gov.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6535,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Parental leave","Relocation assistance","Stock options","Unlimited PTO","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Water Resources","Drones & UAVs","Research Institutes"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-30T19:22:17Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":4,"expected_fill_days":26,"reasons":["conf:0","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-05T05:45:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/rainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/rainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-06T02:21:31Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3528,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":1472,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-07T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":95757},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=95757"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Frainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Frainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Frainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/rainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Frainmaker-manager-uas-platform-engineer"}]}