Sr. Engineer, Flight Test

$105,700 - $161,200/Yr

Virgin Galactic - Tustin, CA

Full-time - Senior

Tustin, CA

Air Transportation

About the position

As a Senior Flight Test Engineer (FTE) at Virgin Galactic, you will play a pivotal role in leading ground and flight test activities. Your primary responsibility will be to ensure that the project meets its mission requirements while maintaining technical integrity, budgetary constraints, and schedule adherence, all with a strong emphasis on safety. You will act as the communication liaison between engineers and managers, developing consistent test methods, processes, and procedures. This role requires you to coordinate all activities involved in planning, executing, and reporting on ground and flight tests. You will be responsible for planning and conducting test flights, providing timely test reports, and performing analysis as required. In this position, you will work closely with engineering teams to translate their requirements into specific test procedures and plans, ensuring the safe and effective operation of our flight test vehicles. Your duties will include configuration control, test conduct, and reporting, which are standard responsibilities for this role. You will gather and develop test requirements from various engineering disciplines, work with engineers to turn these requirements into test configurations, procedures, conditions, and maneuvers, and develop comprehensive test plans and schedules in collaboration with project engineers and program managers. Additionally, you will define control room display requirements, monitor configurations for tests, conduct tests both on the aircraft and in the control room, and provide daily reports on vehicle progress and test outcomes. Writing detailed test reports to document results will also be a key part of your responsibilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead ground test and flight test activities
• Gather and develop the test requirements from the different engineering disciplines
• Work with engineering to turn requirements into test configuration, procedures, conditions, and maneuvers
• Develop test plans
• Develop the test schedules with project engineers and program managers
• Coordinate test schedules with maintenance, engineering, and flight ops
• Define control room display requirements and updates
• Define and monitor configurations for tests
• Conduct tests on the aircraft and in the control room
• Provide daily reports on vehicle progress and reports on tests as flown and completed
• Update flight logs and test documentation
• Write test reports to document results

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, preferably in aerospace
• 10 years of test flight experience
• Knowledge of flight test and aerospace
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills
• Able to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and thrive in a complex product development environment with multiple priorities
• Experience with IMP/IMS, risk management, configuration management, requirements management processes preferred.

Nice-to-haves

• A general understanding of aerospace drawings, specifications, and manufacturing processes
• Test Pilot School graduate, or flight test course work
• Hands on Flight test experience highly desired

Benefits

• Medical insurance
• Financial benefits
• Other benefits as part of the compensation package