Lead MDAO Engineer - Weapon

Fort Walton Beach, Florida, United States

At Zone 5 Technologies, we're redefining what's possible in unmanned aircraft systems. Our team of engineers and innovators is developing cutting‑edge autonomous solutions that push the boundaries of UAS technology - solving complex challenges that matter.

We're building the future of UAS capabilities, and we're looking for exceptional talent to join us. If you're driven by hard problems, energized by rapid innovation, and ready to make an impact on next‑generation flight systems, you belong here.

We are seeking an experienced MDAO Lead to join our Weapons Performance team. In this role, you will lead multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization (MDAO) efforts that bring aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, and GNC together into unified vehicle‑level trade studies and optimization frameworks for Zone 5's air‑launched effects, tactical interceptors, and next‑generation munitions — from early concept and sizing through preliminary design, test correlation, and fielded performance.

We're looking for a technical leader with an entrepreneurial mindset: someone who takes personal responsibility for the success of the systems they help build and has a bias toward action. You will work with the Weapons Performance team's manager to help set technical direction for MDAO, mentor engineers across disciplines, and partner closely with Aerodynamics, Structures, Propulsion, GNC, and Systems Engineering to ensure our systems perform reliably under demanding launch, flight, and terminal conditions.

• Lead multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization (MDAO) efforts that couple aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, and trajectory models into unified vehicle‑level trade studies and sizing analysis for missiles, interceptors, and other types of hardware.
• Work with the Weapons Performance team to establish shared MDAO methods and tools, and document the procedures and processes used for vehicle‑level sizing, trade studies, and design optimization, improving turnaround time and ensuring data consistency across programs.
• Develop and lead automated workflows and scripts that integrate CAD, CFD, FEA, and simulation outputs into optimization loops, streamlining multidisciplinary design data for Aerodynamics, Structures, Propulsion, and GNC teams, while aligning stakeholders across disciplines, getting the right analytical models integrated into the toolset, and applying the appropriate level of fidelity at each stage of study.
• Author and maintain architecture documentation for the MDAO toolset, capturing design decisions, data flows, and integration points across disciplines.
• Establish tasking workflows and development pipelines in standard developer tools (e.g., Git, CI/CD, issue tracking) to manage ongoing development of the MDAO toolset.
• Incorporate feature requests and feedback from Aerodynamics, Structures, Propulsion, and GNC engineers into the ongoing development and prioritization of the MDAO toolset.
• Conduct trade studies and sensitivity analyses to inform conceptual and preliminary design decisions, balancing performance, cost, schedule, and manufacturability.
• Collaborate with Aerodynamics, Structures, Propulsion, GNC, and Systems Engineering to translate single‑discipline analysis into system‑level design and sizing decisions.
• Validate MDAO‑driven designs against wind tunnel, ground test, and flight test data, and lead root‑cause investigation of discrepancies between model predictions and test results.
• Support RFI/RFP proposal responses and new program capture by providing early‑stage vehicle sizing, performance trades, and feasibility assessments.
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to engineers across disciplines on MDAO methods and…