What the role involves
Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the Forgotten Frontier and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere.
Mission
Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.
What you’ll do
Design and fly lightweight, high-reliability structures for stratospheric aircraft
Own mechanical subsystems from concept to flight
Perform first-principles sizing, trade studies, and rapid iteration
Build, test, break, and refine flight hardware
Support integration, production, and flight operations
Work closely with avionics, GNC, power, RF, and software teams
What we’re looking for
2+ years designing, analyzing, or building real mechanical hardware
Strong fundamentals in structures, materials, and first-principles engineering
Experience with lightweight structures, composites, sheet metal, or bonded assemblies
Comfortable moving fast, owning outcomes, and working hands-on in the factory and field
Why Icarus
Meaningful equity
Top market salary and bonuses
Health, dental, and vision insurance
Factory in El Segundo
Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
Small team, massive responsibility
High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
Dream desk setup
Daily lunch
Unlimited celsius
This is not a normal engineering job
We are pioneers, not corporate managers. Icarus deliberately optimizes for a high signal (engineers) to noise (management) ratio, where engineering, flight, and execution matter more than process, politics, or management overhead
You will work side by side with the CEO and a small team of world-class builders. You will own your subsystem end to end. Design it. Build it. Break it. Fix it. Validate it in the desert. Fly it. Then do it again, faster
We expect full extreme ownership. This is a high-trust, no-BS team, and everyone pulls their weight
We are hiring across the stack: mechanical, aerodynamics, RF, GNC, electrical, avionics, power electronics, energy storage, software, and systems
We want builders. No hand-holding. No fluff. No fake projects. No slide decks. No sitting in meetings all day. Just raw engineering, real hardware, and real flight
You must thrive under pressure, learn fast, troubleshoot in the field, and push hardware to its limits. We move fast. We go to Mojave at 4 am in the morning. We expect results and an obsession with quality and speed
You will be a core executor of flight hardware, taking systems from concept to reality and driving rapid iteration loops. You will work across avionics, power electronics, energy storage, integration, and production bring-up. If you want real ownership, real hardware, and real flight milestones, this is it
No tourists. No bystanders. Only builders.
About Icarus
Icarus is building the modern-day U-2 spy plane. Our autonomous solar aircraft fly at 60,000 feet for weeks at a time, eventually months and years, above weather and below satellites. They deliver persistent intelligence and connectivity for the military at a fraction of the cost of existing systems. The stratosphere is the forgotten frontier.
Full Icarus profile