Staff Hardware Systems Engineer

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats. 

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com .

Role Overview:

Chaos is seeking a Staff Hardware Systems Engineer to lead the technical development of next-generation defense systems from concept through field deployment. You will translate mission needs and product strategy into system architectures and integrated hardware solutions. Working across disciplines, you'll solve complex technical problems, drive engineering tradeoffs, and ensure products perform reliably in operational environments.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical credibility with team leadership, systems thinking, and experience delivering hardware in a fast-paced environment. This individual leads from the front, personally executing high-impact technical tasks in support of program success.

This is a full-time position on-site in El Segundo, CA.

Responsibilities:

· Support a small cross-functional hardware development team, establishing technical priorities and driving execution from concept through production

· Support hardware systems engineering from early product definition through architecture, requirements, qualification, production, and lifecycle support

· Define system architectures and allocate functionality across mechanical, electrical, RF, software, and test subsystems

· Define and coordinate internal and external interfaces

· Support system-level trade studies balancing performance, SWaP-C, manufacturability, reliability, schedule, and cost

· Make timely technical decisions under ambiguity while balancing mission performance, risk, schedule, manufacturability, and cost

· Develop new product concepts and support proposals and technology demonstrations

· Identify technical risks early and drive practical mitigation strategies

· Support technical reviews including SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR

· Personally contribute to critical engineering work as needed to ensure team and program success

· Collaborate with manufacturing, suppliers, and test teams to mature designs into production

What Success Looks Like:

· Mission needs and product concepts become executable engineering solutions

· Cross-functional teams remain aligned around a coherent system architecture

· Products perform reliably in demonstrations and operational deployments

· Technical risks are resolved before they become program risks

Minimum Requirements:

· Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field with 8+ years of relevant engineering experience

· Background in space systems, missile systems, avionics, radar, EW, or defense electronics

· Strong understanding of system architecture, interface definition, and engineering tradeoffs

· Proven technical leadership within multidisciplinary engineering teams delivering complex hardware products in a fast-paced development environment

· Experience performing system architecture trade studies and allocating system and hardware requirements

· Strong attention to detail and execution

· Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Preferred Requirements:

· Master's degree in an engineering or business discipline

· Experience interpreting and applying military specifications and standards

· Experience writing technical proposals

· Experience designing for manufacturability and production transition

· Experience with prototype inte …