Principal Engineer - Long Range Strike Weapons

About Castelion

Castelion is bringing a new approach to defense development and production: one that focuses on short, iterative design cycles, rapid flight testing in development, and modern commercial manufacturing strategies for production at 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.

Principal Engineer - Long Range Strike Weapons

We are seeking a Principal Engineer to support the development of Castelion's long-range strike weapon system. In this role, you will be the technical expert on the product - from concept through fielding. You will drive and manage the technical baseline, support system architecture, and ensure the system delivers against its mission and business objectives.

You will collaborate closely within engineering, program management, and business development teams to bring this weapon system to life. This role is ideal for a technically grounded leader who can bridge customer needs, engineering realities, and program constraints to deliver a high-performance, integrated product on aggressive timelines.

Responsibilities

• Shape the technical baseline and product definition for Castelion's long-range strike weapon system.
• Drive the development and maturation of system architecture and interface definitions.
• Drive key design trades across propulsion, guidance, airframe, avionics, and payload subsystems to balance performance, cost, and schedule.
• Ensure all aspects of the product align with mission requirements, operational CONOPS, and government use cases.
• Partner with program managers to shape development roadmaps, schedules, and milestone deliverables.
• Collaborate with business development and sales to align capability with customer demand and campaign objectives.
• Interface with government stakeholders to capture technical requirements and translate them into executable plans.
• Guide verification strategy and support system-level testing and integration efforts.
• Lead cross-functional design reviews and ensure engineering execution aligns with product vision.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of experience in aerospace, defense, or national security programs.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams through the full product lifecycle.
• Deep familiarity with USG programs, acquisitions, and operational concepts.
• Strong engineering mindset with experience working across multi-disciplinary teams.
• Ability to conduct architecture-level trades and weapon system integration assessments.
• Excellent communication and technical writing skills, including generation of CDRLs and technical data packages.
• U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI security clearance.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• 15+ years of experience directly supporting or managing weapon system development.
• Background in missile systems, guidance/navigation/control, electrical engineering, or mission systems engineering.
• Hands-on experience with hypersonic aerothermal modeling, CFD, or thermal protection system (TPS) design.
• Experience with end-to-end weapon system modeling, including trajectory simulation, performance trades, and lethality analysis.
• Familiarity with high-Mach flight dynamics, including aerodynamic stability and control at hypersonic speeds.
• Familiarity with government acquisition processes, requirements decomposition, and systems verification.
• Active Top Secret/SCI clearance.

All employees are granted long-term stock incentives as part of their employment as Castelion. All employees receive access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance, and the company offers four weeks of paid time off per year.

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, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka 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.