Engineer (Formula SAE Track)

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.

This role is built for Formula SAE people.

If you were the person on your team who got things built, stayed late, solved ugly problems, learned whatever was needed, and refused to quit until the car worked, we want to talk.

You do not need a perfect resume. You do not need years of industry experience. You do not need to have had the fanciest title on the team. You need grit, horsepower, humility, technical curiosity, and the will to become great.

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

• Formula SAE experience
• Recent grad, soon-to-graduate student, or exceptional student willing to take a break from school to join a startup
• Evidence that you have built real hardware, not just worked on presentations
• High grit, high urgency, high ownership
• Strong mechanical, electrical, manufacturing, or systems instincts
• Willingness to learn anything required to get the aircraft flying
• Comfortable working hands-on in a factory, lab, desert, field environment, or wherever the mission requires
• Able to take feedback, improve quickly, and keep pushing
• No ego about doing dirty work
• Obsessed with building, testing, learning, and getting better
  
  

Bonus points

• You owned a subsystem on a Formula SAE car
• You manufactured parts yourself
• You stayed late to debug problems before competition
• You wired harnesses, machined parts, tuned systems, ran tests, or fixed failures in the field
• You have CAD, FEA, machining, avionics, embedded systems, GNC, power electronics, batteries, or test experience
• You have a story about something breaking and how you fixed it
  
  

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 systems, taking them from concept to reality and driving rapid iteration loops. You will work across design, integration, testing, and flight. If you want real ownership, real hardware, and real flight milestones, this is it.
  
  

No tourists. No bystanders. Only builders.

Hiring process

• This one is simple. One interview with the CEO. The only hard requirement is Formula SAE experience. No long process. No endless interview loops. No corporate nonsense. If you built real hardware on a Formula SAE team and you have the grit, hunger, and humility to grow fast, I want to talk.
  
  

US salary range

$120,000 - $160,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are considered part of Icarus' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

244 results found

No results found

• Afghanistan 93
• Åland Islands 358
• Albania 355
• Algeria 213
• American Samoa 1
• Andorra 376
• Angola 244
• Anguilla 1
• Antigua & Barbuda 1
• Argentina 54
• Armenia 374
• Aruba 297
• Ascension Island 247
• Australia 61
• Austria 43
• Azerbaijan 994
• Bahamas 1
• Bahrain 973
• Bangladesh 880
• Barbados 1
• Belarus 375
• Belgium 32
• Belize 501
• Benin 229
• Bermuda 1
• Bhutan 975
• Bolivia 591
• Bosnia & Herzegovina 387
• Botswana 267
• Brazil 55
• British Indian Ocean Territory 246
• British Virgin Islands 1
• Brunei 673
• Bulgaria 359
• Burkina Faso 226
• Burundi 257
• Cambodia 855
• Cameroon 237
• Canada 1
• Cape Verde 238
• Caribbean Netherlands 599
• Cayman Islands 1
• Central African Republic 236
• Chad 235
• Chile 56
• China 86
• Christmas Island 61
• Cocos (Keeling) Islands 61
• Colombia 57
• Comoros 269
• Congo - Brazzaville 242
• Congo - Kinshasa 243
• Cook Islands 682
• Costa Rica 506
• Côte d’Ivoire 225
• Croatia 385
• Cuba 53
• Curaçao 599
• Cyprus 357
• Czechia 420
• Denmark 45
• Djibouti 253
• Dominica 1
• Dominican Republic 1
• Ecuador 593
• Egypt 20
• El Salvador 503
• Equatorial Guinea 240
• Eritrea 291
• Estonia 372
• Eswatini 268
• Ethiopia 251
• Falkland Islands 500
• Faroe Islands 298
• Fiji 679
• Finland 358
• France 33
• French Guiana 594
• French Polynesia 689
• Gabon 241
• Gambia 220
• Georgia 995
• Germany 49
• Ghana 233
• Gibraltar 350
• Greece 30
• Greenland 299
• Grenada 1
• Guadeloupe 590
• Guam 1
• Guatemala 502
• Guernsey 44
• Guinea 224
• Guinea-Bissau 245
• Guyana 592
• Haiti 509
• Honduras 504
• Hong Kong SAR China 852
• Hungary 36
• Iceland 354
• India 91
• Indonesia 62
• Iran 98
• Iraq 964
• Ireland 353
• Isle of Man 44
• Israel 972
• Italy 39
• Jamaica 1
• Japan 81
• Jersey 44
• Jordan 962
• Kazakhstan 7
• Kenya 254
• Kiribati 686
• Kosovo 383
• Kuwait 965
• Kyrgyzstan 996
• Laos 856
• Latvia 371
• Lebanon 961
• Lesotho 266
• Liberia 231
• Libya 218
• Liechtenstein 423
• Lithuania 370
• Luxembourg 352
• Macao SAR China 853
• Madagascar 261
• Malawi 265
• Malaysia 60
• Maldives 960
• Mali 223
• Malta 356
• Marshall Islands 692
• Martinique 596
• Mauritania 222
• Mauritius 230
• Mayotte 262
• Mexico 52
• Micronesia 691
• Moldova 373
• Monaco 377
• Mongolia 976
• Montenegro 382
• Montserrat 1
• Morocco 212
• Mozambique 258
• Myanmar (Burma) 95
• Namibia 264
• Nauru 674
• Nepal 977
• Netherlands 31
• New Caledonia 687
• New Zealand 64
• Nicaragua 505
• Niger 227
• Nigeria 234
• Niue 683
• Norfolk Island 672
• North Korea 850
• North Macedonia 389
• Northern Mariana Islands 1
• Norway 47
• Oman 968
• Pakistan 92
• Palau 680
• Palestinian Territories 970
• Panama 507
• Papua New Guinea 675
• Paraguay 595
• Peru 51
• Philippines 63
• Poland 48
• Portugal 351
• Puerto Rico 1
• Qatar 974
• Réunion 262
• Romania 40
• Russia 7
• Rwanda 250
• Samoa 685
• San Marino 378
• São Tomé & Príncipe 239
• Saudi Arabia 966
• Senegal 221
• Serbia 381
• Seychelles 248
• Sierra Leone 232
• Singapore 65
• Sint Maarten 1
• Slovakia 421
• Slovenia 386
• Solomon Islands 677
• Somalia 252
• South Africa 27
• South Korea 82
• South Sudan 211
• Spain 34
• Sri Lanka 94
• St. Barthélemy 590
• St. Helena 290
• St. Kitts & Nevis 1
• St. Lucia 1
• St. Martin 590
• St. Pierre & Miquelon 508
• St. Vincent & Grenadines 1
• Sudan 249
• Suriname 597
• Svalbard & Jan Mayen 47
• Sweden 46
• Switzerland 41
• Syria 963
• Taiwan 886
• Tajikistan 992
• Tanzania 255
• Thailand 66
• Timor-Leste 670
• Togo 228
• Tokelau 690
• Tonga 676
• Trinidad & Tobago 1
• Tunisia 216
• Turkey 90
• Turkmenistan 993
• Turks & Caicos Islands 1
• Tuvalu 688
• U.S. Virgin Islands 1
• Uganda 256
• Ukraine 380
• United Arab Emirates 971
• United Kingdom 44
• United States 1
• Uruguay 598
• Uzbekistan 998
• Vanuatu 678
• Vatican City 39
• Venezuela 58
• Vietnam 84
• Wallis & Futuna 681
• Western Sahara 212
• Yemen 967
• Zambia 260
• Zimbabwe 263
  
  

We are in Los Angeles, and everyone comes to the factory every day. If you live elsewhere, we will help you relocate, but all employees are expected to be in the factory. We do not do hybrid or remote work. Is this OK with you?

Do you now, or will you in the future, require employer sponsorship to legally work for our company in the United States?