Merlin Labs

Financial Planning and Analysis

• Design and implement FP&A processes for engineering headcount, program costs, R&D spend, and capital allocation
• Build financial models that translate engineering roadmaps into resource plans, hiring forecasts, budget commitments, and strategic scenarios
• Partner with Engineering and Program Management to enhance program cost accounting framework
• Define chart-of-accounts conventions, cost center structures, and reporting hierarchies
• Create monthly/quarterly operating cadence: actuals reviews, variance analysis, re-forecast processes
• Deliver reporting and analytics for leadership's insight into burn, capacity, and program financial health
• Support implementation of financial planning tools and systems
• Assume full P&L ownership for an assigned product line
• Drive pricing strategy, make-vs.-buy decisions, and resource allocation

Director, Strategic Finance

Recruitment

• Coordinate and schedule interviews across multiple time zones, ensuring a smooth experience for candidates and interview teams
• Manage interview logistics including calendar coordination, virtual meeting setup, onsite scheduling, and interview confirmations
• Serve as a primary point of contact for candidates throughout the interview process, providing timely communication and a high-touch experience
• Partner closely with recruiters and hiring managers to support full-cycle recruiting activities and maintain hiring momentum
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date candidate records within the applicant tracking system (ATS)
• Prepare interview materials, agendas, and interviewer guidance as needed
• Support offer-stage coordination, including scheduling offer discussions and assisting with pre-employment steps
• Track interview activity, scheduling metrics, and recruiting workflow status to ensure process efficiency
• Identify opportunities to improve coordination processes and candidate experience during the contract period
• Provide general administrative and operational support to the recruiting team as hiring needs evolve

Contract Recruiting Coordinator

Systems Engineer

• Apply systems security engineering methods across the architecture, design, evaluation, and integration of Merlin's defense programs and products, working alongside engineering teams to embed security requirements early rather than retrofitting them once a system is built.
• Support RMF accreditation and authorization activities for supported programs, including categorization, controls selection and implementation, security assessment, and body of evidence package development through all required RMF steps.
• Engage with government customers and their security representatives to define, document, and implement security protection requirements with the technical rigor and fidelity that DoD authorization demands.
• Apply and verify DISA SRGs and STIGs across program environments, and maintain the configuration management processes that keep systems compliant as they evolve through their operational lifecycle.
• Conduct vulnerability assessments using tools such as Tenable NESSUS and ACAS, coordinate remediation with engineering teams, and manage the ongoing security posture of supported systems.
• Evaluate and advise on the selection of COTS, GOTS, and open-source tools entering the program environment, following DoD-approved software approval processes and ensuring security implications are understood before adoption.
• Support DevSecOps security integration by bringing defense-grade practices into our CI/CD pipeline, including static application security testing and security-gated build processes for government-facing deliverables.

Information Systems Security Engineer

• Lead a small team of System Engineers and be accountable for the execution of System Engineering tasks and delivery of work products which includes the following:
• Lead the development of systems engineering development plans and processes as needed for technical execution.
• Managing systems engineering tasking and aligning disciplines to support their successful and timely completion
• Manage system-level verification and validation activities.
• Lead reviews of artifacts with customers, suppliers, and regulatory authorities as required.
• Review of concepts of operation, system architecture (including functional and physical architectures), system requirements, and system interfaces for Merlin products. On this small, agile team, you will own significant pieces of these activities yourself.
• Work cross-functionally with the safety, hardware, and software teams to capture, document, and communicate requirements and interfaces.

Lead Systems Engineer, Flight Autonomy

• Participate in the development of systems engineering development plans and processes as needed for technical execution.
• Managing systems engineering tasking and aligning disciplines to support their successful and timely completion
• Development of descriptions of Features and Functions to be executed by the Sub-System
• Development of Sub-System Level Requirements
• Development of Sub-System Level Test Methods and Testing Strategies
• Demonstrated ability to work in cross-functional teams
• Support/Execution of verification and validation activities.
• Reviews of System Engineering artifacts such as requirements, with customers, suppliers, and regulatory authorities as required.
• Review of concepts of operation, system architecture (including functional and physical architectures), system requirements, and system interfaces for Merlin products. On this small, agile team, you will own significant pieces of these activities yourself.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with the safety, hardware, and software teams to capture, document, and communicate requirements and interfaces.

Senior Systems Engineer, Flight Autonomy

Solutions Engineer

• Guide system development and traceability from system requirements capture, through design decision making, to final demonstration for systems being implemented on various aircraft.
• Facilitate the development of concepts of operation, system architecture (including functional and physical architectures), system requirements, measures of performance, certification planning and execution from requirements through to demonstration for Merlin product integrations.
• Work across the safety, hardware, simulation, and software teams to capture, document, and communicate requirements and interfaces
• Host design reviews of architectures for senior leadership and review artifacts as the primary technical stakeholder across all supporting functional disciplines.
• Managing systems engineering tasking and aligning disciplines to support their successful and timely completion.
• Participate in the development of systems engineering development plans and processes as needed.
• Participate in reviews of artifacts with customers, suppliers, and regulatory authorities as required.

Staff Systems Engineer – Integration

Business Development Rep

• Develop, execute a detailed engagement and growth strategy for Merlin Labs to capture government business in the Mobility and SOF pipeline
• Build and maintain senior-level relationships across U.S. government agencies, including defense, aviation, and related stakeholders
• Connect current and be able to influence future needs/requirements for Mobility and SOF customers with Merlin’s products, programs, technologies and capabilities
• Provide quarterly updates/reviews to Merlin Labs senior leadership
• Drive early processes for new pursuits by collaborating with internal and external customers on strategic planning, including traditional and non-traditional acquisition pathways
• Build compelling proposals to win government business
• Accurately determine budgets and procurement intentions to set realistic Price to Win targets
• Achieve a set KPI’s to expand and convert Pipeline to align with internal priorities

Director, Business Development

• Grow revenue by building, maturing, and closing a robust pipeline across maritime defense, security, commercial surveillance, and government customers. Lead all capture efforts, proposals, and negotiations.
• Shape customer requirements for maritime ISR, patrol, and surveillance missions — translating operational challenges into actionable product and program strategies in collaboration with Product and Engineering.
• Own and manage P&L, ensuring consistent revenue growth, profitability, and long-term business viability.
• Lead the portfolio of maritime programs — providing oversight of financials, schedules, staffing, risks, and execution quality with Program Management and Finance.
• Serve as Merlin’s executive presence with maritime agencies, naval aviation, coast guards, and commercial surveillance operators — building trust, credibility, and long-term partnership opportunities.
• Represent Merlin’s uncrewed ISR capabilities, particularly those enabled by the King Air platform and future Merlin integrations.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration across BD, Capture, Product, Engineering, and Finance to deliver solutions that win and scale within maritime markets.

GM – Maritime

AI Engineer

• Technically strategize on Foundation model selection, refactor, design, build, and maintain Merlin's core AI models, training and inference infrastructure, including distributed training pipelines, experiment tracking, and model registry systems.
• Define and drive standards and benchmarks for model evaluation, benchmarking, and regression testing to ensure AI systems meet safety and performance thresholds before deployment.
• Architect and own the foundational data pipeline that ingests, processes, labels, and versions flight data for use across all autonomy and AI teams.
• Identify and resolve systemic technical bottlenecks that slow down AI development velocity across Merlin's engineering organization.
• Collaborate with AI infra, Simulation, and Flight Software teams to define interfaces and shared abstractions that make the broader stack more coherent and maintainable.
• Mentor, build and technically guide junior and mid-level engineers on the AI Foundation team, conducting design reviews and raising the overall quality of the team's output.
• Lead technical scoping and estimation for large AI foundational model projects, breaking ambiguous requirements into actionable engineering plans.
• Evaluate and adopt relevant open-source tooling, frameworks, and research, contributing back where appropriate.
• Document architecture decisions, system designs, and operational runbooks to a standard that supports safety review and long-term maintainability.
• Contribute to hiring by conducting technical interviews and helping define the engineering bar for the AI Foundation team.

Staff Software Engineer, AI Foundation Model

DevOps Engineer

• Define and execute a comprehensive data strategy that spans AI model training, simulation, and production deployment across safety-critical autonomous systems
• Own the end-to-end data pipeline ensuring the reliability and scale that training and simulation workflows demand
• Build and maintain data flywheels that continuously improve model performance
• Collaborate closely with teams provisioning and operating large-scale GPU/TPU training clusters
• Drive the design and integration of data pipelines for simulations
• Partner with safety, validation, and certification teams for data quality standards
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of data and infrastructure engineers
• Define and track KPIs for data pipeline health, simulation fidelity, and model readiness

Lead AI Dataloop, Release Engineer

• Guide system development from system requirements capture, through design decision making, to final demonstration for systems being implemented on existing general aviation aircraft.
• Facilitate the development of concepts of operation, system architecture (including functional and physical architectures), system requirements, and system interfaces for Merlin products.
• Work across the safety, hardware, and software teams to capture, document, and communicate requirements and interfaces.
• Managing systems engineering tasking and aligning disciplines to support their successful and timely completion
• Participate in the development of systems engineering development plans and processes as needed.
• Participate in reviews of artifacts with customers, suppliers, and regulatory authorities as required.

Staff Systems Engineer

• Participate in the development of concepts of operation, system architecture (including functional and physical architectures), system requirements, and system interfaces for Merlin products.
• Work across the safety, hardware, and software teams to capture, document, and communicate requirements and interfaces.
• Manage systems engineering tasking and align disciplines to support their successful and timely completion.
• Perform system-level verification and validation activities.
• Participate in the development of systems engineering development plans and processes as needed.
• Participate in reviews of artifacts with customers, suppliers, and regulatory authorities as required.

Senior Systems Engineer

Program Manager

• Own integration program execution for assigned airframes end to end — desktop, SITL, bench, and on-aircraft — translating mission and platform requirements into clear deployment and execution plans.
• Lead the functional team, setting program strategy, milestones, and priorities while the TPMs own day-to-day technical delivery; hold engineering, hardware, and functional managers accountable to schedule and scope.
• Own the airworthiness and certification path in partnership with the Certification Program Management team.
• Drive Stages of Involvement (SOIs), DO-160 environmental qualification, and system-safety artifacts (ARP4761A / MIL-STD-882E), keeping the certification IMS credible and on track.
• Manage hardware and subcontractor integration so that long-lead hardware availability is planned, not discovered. Treat supply/demand as a primary schedule driver.
• Own schedule and financial baselines - build and maintain integrated master schedules, WBS, financial plans, and program baselines across workstreams; feed the master supply-and-program model and program dashboards.
• Serve as the senior program point of contact for government customers, partners, and certification authorities — running program reviews, milestone gates, and status reporting with high accountability.
• Plan and shepherd flight test in coordination with the Flight Test lead connecting test outcomes back to certification and fielding milestones.
• Identify and mitigate cross-program risk before they hit delivery.
• Contribute to capture and new opportunity shaping alongside Business Development and technical leads, informing proposals with realistic integration, cost, and schedule inputs.
• Scale the operating model: tighten and extend the existing program rhythms, WBS frameworks, and reporting artifacts as the portfolio and team grow, and mentor across the program management organization.

Senior Program Manager, Air Vehicle Integration

Artificial Intelligence

• Define and drive the technical strategy for Merlin's AI Core platform
• Lead, grow, and mentor a multi-disciplinary team of AI engineers, robotics engineers, and software engineers
• Collaborate with the VP of Engineering and CTO
• Own the architecture of the AI Core stack
• Establish and enforce engineering standards
• Partner closely with Flight Operations, Systems Engineering, and Certification teams
• Drive integration between AI Core components and broader systems
• Recruit senior engineering talent

Director, AI Core Software

Manager

• Manage, mentor, and grow a high-performing aircraft engineering team with focus on avionics systems
• Lead, coordinate, and guide Merlin aircraft modifications
• Oversee the design and integration of critical systems, including flight management, navigation, communication, and flight control systems
• Coordinate and collaborate with internal Merlin and external integration teams to develop and manage technical requirements, schedules, and quality assurance for Merlin’s products
• Review and approve releasing engineering design data, engineering orders and other related documentation for maintenance and field use
• Create and manage project schedules, budgets, and resource allocation to ensure program milestones are met on time and within cost
• Prepare and release electrical design and fabrication drawings, test plans and reports, and associated aircraft installation and certification documents
• Work closely with certification authorities (e.g., FAA, CAANZ) to ensure systems meet safety and reliability standards required for airworthiness
• Partner with external vendors to manage technical requirements, schedules, and quality assurance for outsourced components
• Set and uphold high standards for design reviews, documentation, and risk reduction strategies
• Manage and coordinate aircraft surveys and provide on-site technical assistance for engineering teams and design evaluations
• Provide guidance and instruction to the maintenance team on new modifications and testing
• This position may require up to 50% travel, sometimes with short notice, to both domestic and international locations to support aircraft and system integration