Vice President of Engineering

ABOUT HEAVISIDE INDUSTRIES

Heaviside Industries builds multi-domain autonomous precision munitions for U.S. and allied special operations and conventional forces. While modern warfare has rapidly evolved with the proliferation of unmanned systems, hyper-precise munitions in contested environments are the future of the battlefield. Economical precision strike capabilities are critical to U.S. and allied war efforts, enabling successful defeat of enemy military assets and infrastructure. Heaviside builds precision munitions designed to operate in GPS-denied and spectrum-jammed battlefields—where traditional systems degrade or fail—without inflated prices or sacrifice to performance.

All engineering and manufacturing is conducted in-house in Heaviside's Los Angeles, CA headquarters and Oslo, Norway office.

Heaviside is backed by Felicis, Hedosophia, Interlagos, Friends & Family Capital, Menlo Ventures, Flume Ventures, Cantos, and others.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Lead Heaviside's multi-disciplinary engineering organization spanning aerodynamics, GNC, RF, DSP, software, electrical, and mechanical engineering in service of fielded precision munitions.
• Own technical execution of the weapon system portfolio: architecture decisions, design reviews, verification and validation, and flight test campaigns at DoD ranges.
• Set and maintain the engineering technical roadmap in partnership with the VP of Programs & Product, sequencing seeker, navigation, and airframe maturation against program commitments.
• Build engineering process appropriate to a fast-moving munitions developer: configuration management, requirements traceability, design review cadence, and test discipline that survives government scrutiny without bureaucracy.
• Recruit, develop, and retain exceptional engineers from across the defense-tech and aerospace talent pool; own leveling, technical career paths, and org design as the team scales.
• Serve as the senior technical authority in customer engagements, safety reviews, and airworthiness/insensitive-munitions-adjacent certification processes.
• Drive a culture of hardware-rich iteration: build, test, fly, and learn on aggressive timelines while maintaining the rigor a weapon system demands.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• 15+ years of engineering experience on defense or aerospace systems, with 8+ years leading multi-disciplinary engineering organizations.
• Demonstrated delivery of fielded weapon systems, missiles, or military UAS from concept through flight test and production — hands-on ownership of the full lifecycle.
• Deep systems engineering fluency: requirements decomposition, interface control, V&V planning, and formal failure investigation.
• Track record of scaling a defense engineering organization while maintaining velocity and technical quality.
• Strong technical depth in at least one of Heaviside's core disciplines (GNC, RF/EW, autonomy software, airframe design) and credibility across all of them.
• Experience with DoD flight test operations, range safety processes, and military airworthiness or equivalent certification regimes.
• [BONUS] Direct experience with precision munitions, seekers, terminal guidance, or GPS-denied navigation systems.
• [BONUS] Experience in a venture-backed defense startup environment.
• U.S. Person as defined by ITAR (22 CFR §120.62)

Additional Information:

The anticipated annual base salary range for this role is $245,000 – $400,000.

Compensation bands are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, technical capabilities and internal equity. In addition to base salary, for full-time hires, you may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of stock options, and access to medical, vision & dental coverage as well as access to a 401(k) retirement plan.

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

Heaviside is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Heaviside is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, physical disability or any other legally protected status.