Founding Controls & Aerospace Engineer

Founding Controls / Aerospace Engineer

📍 Swindon-based with regular travel to Kyiv | 🕐 Full-time
💰 Up to £70,000 + 3% equity | Travel, housing & training covered

Build tech that saves lives.
I've partnered with an exciting mission led start-up. They're prototyping a solution that will directly save lives by fighting back against unmanned drone attacks. Their early in the journey, they have a mission, small team and basic prototype that they are still iterating. You'll be part of every aspect of design & development to bring this product to life over the next 6 months and production over the next 12 months.

They're building hand-launched micro-missiles to intercept drones at short range, small enough to fit in a vest, affordable enough for wide use, and fast enough to matter. Working directly with Ukrainian brigades and testing at a private UK site to build real hardware that stops drones from killing civilians.

We're now looking for a Founding Controls / Aerospace Engineer to join the core team. You'll lead the development of control algorithms, flight surfaces, and onboard system behaviour from simulation environments to hardware-in-the-loop and live-fire field testing.

🔧 What you'll do:

• Design and implement control algorithms for fin-guided flight
• Simulate and optimize aerodynamic surfaces and system dynamics
• Integrate sensors, actuators, and flight control hardware
• Build and run software- and hardware-in-the-loop setups
• Work with the full engineering team to test, tune, and iterate in the field

✅ What we're looking for:

• Experience building control systems for missiles, UAVs, drones or similar
• Deep understanding of control theory, flight dynamics, and real-time systems
• Experience with simulation tools (e.g. MATLAB/Simulink, Gazebo, custom tools)
• Systems thinker with the ability to work across software, hardware, and design teams
• Citizen of a NATO country or Ukraine
• Willing to work on-site in Swindon and travel to Kyiv for field work

Bonus points for:

• Electrical, embedded systems, or computer vision experience
• Background in startup, rapid prototyping, or defence innovation
• Previous experience with missile, rocket or guided flight systems

🚀 Why join?

• Impact - Build frontline tech to save lives
• Ownership - We're still prototyping, you can be a huge part of the design journey
• Team - Work with experts from Stanford, Imperial, & special forces
• Support - Salary, all travel expenses + 3% equity, any training covered

This is not a research role. This is building, testing, iterating - fast.

If you're an engineering whizz, ambitious, love a challenge and want your work to have some real-world impact that you can be proud of. Apply or give me a call.

Spectrum IT Recruitment (South) Limited is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.