2 jobs in Buoyant Aero (YC S21)

Head of Aerospace Engineering & R&D

Buoyant Aero, Inc. · New York office (NewLab, Brooklyn Navy Yard) · Full-time

Buoyant Aero builds autonomous lighter‑than‑air aircraft — unmanned blimps that fly live commercial advertising deployments for real customers. YC‑backed, with a six‑month flagship deployment underway soon to be underway in the Bay Area. We’re building the engineering team that takes this from one airship + one deployment to a real platform company. The current aircraft is a ~25 m³ non‑rigid airship with custom thrust‑vectoring propulsion, active pressure management, ArduPlane on a Cube Orange, and custom Lua mixers.

You'll be Buoyant's senior aerospace engineering authority and the R&D lead based in our New York office. You own the technical depth across aerodynamics, controls, avionics, flight software, and electronics integration — the cross‑discipline engineering that makes our airships fly well and reliably, today and at scale. You report directly to the CEO and have the call on system architecture, control‑system design, and the R&D roadmap.

This is the right role for someone who:

• Has done real aerospace systems engineering on novel platforms — not just spec’d parts
• Wants to lead R&D at a small, fast hardware company where every decision ships
• Is willing to do the deep technical work themselves and build a team out over time

• Systems engineering & architecture — set the technical architecture across mechanical, electrical/avionics, and flight software; resolve cross‑discipline tradeoffs; own the integrated system performance budget
• Aerodynamics & flight performance — sizing, drag, stability, gust response, fin design, control authority; from analysis through wind/flight validation
• Control systems & tuning — control law design, mode definitions, gain tuning across regimes (manual, stabilized, autonomous); take flight logs and turn them into corrected behavior
• Avionics & flight software — Cube Orange / ArduPlane stack, custom Lua mixers for thrust vectoring, telemetry (MAVLink, CRSF, ELRS, RFD900), failsafes, Remote ID; comfortable down to ChibiOS / STM32H7 internals when needed
• Electronics & integration — power, sensors, payload, harnessing; schematic‑level fluency and hands‑on prototype build
• Reliability & test instrumentation — flight test campaigns, instrumentation, log analysis, anomaly investigation
• R&D roadmap — what we prototype next, what we defer, what we outsource; convert customer and ops feedback into engineering priorities
• People — manage the avionics team (going part‑time in September) and grow the NY R&D team over time

• 10+ years aerospace systems engineering , ideally on novel/experimental aircraft, drones, eVTOL, LTA, missile systems, or comparable
• Real depth in at least three of: aerodynamics, controls, avionics / flight software, electronics, structural integration
• Deep ArduPilot or PX4 experience — custom mixers, control allocation, parameter tuning, reading and modifying source
• Control law design and tuning fluency — frequency domain, state‑space, gain scheduling; comfortable defining and validating control modes for a novel platform
• Hands‑on — you've built, instrumented, and flown test articles, not just managed contractors who did
• Field‑debug instinct — comfortable spending days at a remote site chasing intermittent failures
• Comfortable down to firmware / HAL / RTOS when the problem demands it (ChibiOS, STM32H7, etc.)
• Python plus at least one of C / C++
• Direct communicator, no fluff

• Non‑traditional UAS experience (LTA, VTOL, tilt‑rotor, helicopters)
• ArduPilot Lua scripting (or fast learner)
• Part 107 certified
• Board‑level hardware design experience
• Prior founding or early‑team engineer at a hardware startup
• Experience with reliability engineering for daily commercial operations, not only R&D demos
• Graduate‑level aerospace education (MS/PhD) in controls, aerodynamics, or systems

You'd be Buoyant's senior engineering authority at a small hardware company building something most people have never seen fly. Daily commercial operations in real wind for real customers. Novel‑enough platform to be genuinely interesting. The tradeoff: small team, multiple hats, no political cover, no engineering management layer between you and the CTO. You make calls, they ship, they fly, and we all learn.

New York office at NewLab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with regular travel to our LA facility and to SF for deployments.

Senior leadership band — base + meaningful equity. Open to discussion on structure.