Senior Staff Aerostructures Design Engineer (Aerospace)

Location: Dallas, Texas; San Diego, California; or Remote within the United States. Workplace is listed as on-site.

Salary: $170,000–$260,000 per year, plus bonus, benefits, and equity for regular full-time employees.

Company

hirify.global develops intelligent defense systems, including autonomous aircraft, autonomy software, and simulation technologies.

What you will do

• Lead the design and development of primary and secondary structures for a next-generation autonomous UAV platform.
• Own the structural design lifecycle from concept generation and CAD modeling through detail design and drawing release.
• Perform and guide FEA, stress, fatigue, margin, and design optimization analyses under operational loads and edge cases.
• Coordinate structural integration with aerodynamics, propulsion, avionics, payload, manufacturing, and flight test teams.
• Lead material selection, structural validation testing, design reviews, and technical decisions for composite and metallic structures.
• Transition designs into production and field deployment while improving engineering processes, configuration management, and team workflows.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 10+ years of aircraft structural design experience with ownership of components or systems through development, testing, or production.
• Deep knowledge of composite and metallic structures, material behavior, joints, and thermal or environmental effects.
• Expertise with CAD tools such as NX, CATIA, or SolidWorks and FEA tools such as ANSYS, Abaqus, or NASTRAN.
• Experience with stress and fatigue analysis, DFMA, GD&T, tolerance stackups, structural layouts, and cross-functional engineering leadership.
• Ability to obtain a S//SAR-level security clearance is desired; offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check.

Nice to have

• Experience with Group 3–5 UAV, DoD aircraft, or high-performance aerospace vehicle programs.
• Knowledge of MIL-STD, ASME Y14.5, FAA regulations, and certification pathways.
• Experience with flight vehicle integration, manufacturing liaison, production support, model-based engineering, digital twins, or configuration management.
• Background in failure analysis, design iteration, test correlation, startup, R&D, or high-growth defense environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Mission-driven work focused on protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems.
• Accelerated aircraft development environment with hands-on engineering and rapid technical decision-making.
• Regular full-time employees receive benefits, bonus eligibility, and equity.
• Equal opportunity workplace with accommodation support for applicants with disabilities or special needs.