Art Illustrator

About Castelion

Castelion is bringing a new approach to defense development and production: short, iterative design cycles, rapid testing, and modern commercial manufacturing strategies built for scale. We're designing, building, and testing next generation long range strike weapons systems to give America and its Allies a definitive edge and deter future conflicts.

The brand studio you will help build is how the world comes to understand that mission.

The context that matters

In the mid-20th century, the defense industry made the impossible look inevitable. Stealth. Precision-guided munitions. Speed that dominated the battlespace. The men and women who visualized those systems and rendered them in ink, gouache, and airbrush before they existed in metal. They gave a generation something to believe in before the hardware could prove it.

At Castelion, we believe modern defense manufacturing requires the same new energy around design and illustration.

Our Brand Studio is looking for illustrators who want a mission and the freedom to define it.

The Role

As an Illustrator/Designer on the Brand Studio team, you bring Castelion's technology, mission, and story to life through original illustration across editorial, campaign, digital, and print contexts. Reporting to the Senior Manager for Art Direction, you'll develop and execute traditional and digital illustration work that is technically grounded, visually compelling, and built to last.

This role is for someone who can work from a brief or a conversation and produce something that feels both inevitable and entirely original. You understand that great illustration inside a serious technical company requires discipline and you take as much pride in clarity of communication as in quality of craft.

We are looking for a lifelong illustrator. The ideal candidate maintains an active drawing practice, fills sketchbooks, studies visual storytelling, and has a deep love for the craft of drawing. Their portfolio should demonstrate original illustration work, strong draftsmanship, character, composition, and visual problem-solving.

What You Will Do

Original Illustration & Campaign Execution

• Create original illustrations for editorial, digital, print, events, recruiting, and internal communications across a range of styles and fidelity levels from concept sketches to finished art.

• Execute illustration briefs developed in partnership with the Art Director, translating technical concepts, mission narratives, and brand themes into compelling visual storytelling.

• Develop work that reflects and expands Castelion's visual identity with a sensibility rooted in mid-century defense and aerospace illustration, updated for a modern manufacturing context.

Technical & Systems Illustration

• Produce technical and semi-technical illustrations of hardware, systems, and environments that are accurate enough to earn the trust of engineers and compelling enough to engage a general audience.

• Work from engineering references, photography, and subject matter expert input to depict hypersonic systems, manufacturing environments, and mission scenarios with authority and craft.

• Develop explainer visuals, cutaway diagrams, and conceptual imagery that translate complex technical subject matter for recruiting, business development, and public communications contexts.

Creative Development & Direction Support

• Contribute to visual research, moodboards, and reference gathering that inform illustration direction across campaigns and initiatives.

• Participate in art direction conversations with the Art Director and Marketing Managers, offering illustration perspective during creative development.

Asset Production & Library Contribution

• Deliver finished illustration files in formats optimized for digital, print, and vendor handoff, properly organized, named, and version-controlled.

• Contribute completed illustration assets to the centralized brand library so they can be adapted and reused across channels without requiring a full redraw.

• Flag scope changes, technical ambiguities, or reference gaps before they affect timelines or quality.

Who You Are

Must-Have Qualifications

• 2–5 years of experience in illustration, concept art, or a closely related visual discipline, with a portfolio demonstrating range across styles, subject matter, and output formats.

• Strong observational drawing and sketchbook work.

• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud (Illustrator, Photoshop) and comfort working in Figma for file organization and collaboration; ability to produce clean, production-ready files.

• Ability to work from art direction briefs and technical references and execute with meaningful independence, developing fresh interpretations, not just recreating references.

• High attention to craft: Referenced decisions, deliberate composition and consistent quality across deliverables.

• Able to perform on a PC system.

Nice-to-Have Experience

• Experience in defense, aerospace, autonomy, robotics, or other deep-tech sectors, including familiarity with the visual conventions of technical and military illustration.

• Fluency in Art and Graphic Design history

• Some motion design capability (After Effects, Procreate )

• Experience producing large-format or environmental graphics, event signage, or experiential visual installations.

• Comfort working with engineering documentation, 3D reference models, or CAD-derived imagery as illustration inputs.

• Active or eligible for a U.S. security clearance.

Leadership Qualities

• Bias to Action and Creative Problem Solving. Desire and experience questioning assumptions in ways that lead to break through ideas that are ultimately implemented. Successfully bring in applicable processes/concepts/materials from other industries to achieve efficiency gains. The ability to personally resolve minor issues in development without requiring significant support.
• High Commitment, High Initiative. A successful candidate will have a genuine passion for Castelion's mission and consistently look for ways to contribute to the company's technical goals and prevent hardware blockers. Ability to work in a fast paced, autonomously driven, and demanding atmosphere. Strong sense of accountability and integrity.
• Clear Communicator. Proactively communicates blockers. Trusted in previous roles to be voice of company with regulators, suppliers, gate keepers and customers. Capable of tactfully managing relationships with stakeholders to achieve company-desired outcomes without compromising relationships. Emails, IMs and verbal interactions are logical, drive clarity, and detailed enough to eliminate ambiguity.

ITAR Requirements

• To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, the applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Employment with Castelion is governed on the basis of 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, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

This internship is paid at an hourly rate of $30 per hour. Compensation may vary based on experience and education level. For non-local interns, housing or relocation stipends may be available to help offset temporary living expenses.