System Identification Engineer

About Us

Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces.

Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected.

About the role

Every airframe Harmattan AI flies starts with a model. System identification turns flight data into the verified dynamics that guidance and control are designed, tuned and trained on. It is the foundation of an autopilot that adapts across multirotors, fixed wings, VTOLs and missiles.

As a System Identification Engineer, working out of Lausanne, you will own the path from flight test to identified model. You will design and run your own experiments, build a repeatable identification pipeline, and deliver models the G&C team can trust.

Responsibilities

• Experiment Design & Flight Test: Plan and run your own identification tests, from excitation design to flight tests, including coordinating with the .

• Model Identification: Identify rigid-body, aerodynamic, propulsion and actuator dynamics using frequency and time-domain methods, including closed-loop identification on vehicles flown under a controller.

• Propulsion & Actuators: Characterize motors, ESCs, propellers and control surfaces, including bandwidth, delays, saturation, and thermal and battery effects.

• Identification Pipeline: Build and maintain an automated, reproducible pipeline from flight logs to identified model. This covers ingestion, data-quality checks, estimation, validation and reporting.

• Model Validation: Validate models against held-out flight data, quantify uncertainty, and make sure each model is fit for purpose: controller design, simulation, or training learned G&C.

• New Airframes: Extend the capability from multirotors to control-surface multirotors, fixed wings, tail-sitters and missiles.

• Simulation & G&C Support: Deliver models into simulation, SITL and HITL, and work closely with control, guidance and embedded engineers to close the loop between models and flight results.

• Mentorship: Depending on seniority, support the team by mentoring junior engineers and interns.

Candidate Requirements

• Educational Background: A strong academic record with a degree in aerospace, control, mechanical engineering or a related STEM field. A practical track record matters more than the specific degree.

• System Identification: Proven experience identifying dynamic models of flying platforms from real data, in both the frequency and time domain, including the pitfalls of closed-loop data.

• Flight Mechanics & Control: Solid grasp of rigid-body dynamics, aerodynamic forces and moments, non-dimensionalization, stability modes and propulsion models. Also enough control background to know what the model will be used for.

• Flight Testing: Hands-on experience planning and running flight tests and working from raw, imperfect logs.

• Software: Strong Python and scientific computing skills, with the discipline to build tools others can rerun.

Nice to have

• Rigorous about data quality, uncertainty and validation; skeptical of models until they are proven.

• Autonomous and hands-on, comfortable moving between bench, field and code.

• Communicates clearly, able to present models and test results to engineers and senior stakeholders.

• Thrives under pressure in a fast-paced environment with a no-task-is-too-small mentality.

• Fixed-wing aerodynamic modeling; VTOL or tail-sitter dynamics; remote pilot certification; experience with real flight logs; structural or vibration modes; data-driven or learned dynamics models.

• Commitment: 100% dedication to Harmattan AI’s mission of providing a defensive edge to allied nations through ethical, high-impact technology.

We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.

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