Senior Hardware Integration Engineer

As TwentyFour grows, our bottleneck is no longer just designing individual subsystems—it's integrating them into reliable, flight-ready UAVs. 

Today, much of the knowledge and decision-making required to bring mechanics, electronics and embedded systems together sits with a small number of senior engineers. As prototype frequency increases and multiple products are developed in parallel, this creates both a throughput bottleneck and a key-person dependency. 

The Hardware Integration Engineer exists to own the execution of hardware integration, taking released subsystem designs and transforming them into validated flying prototypes while enabling specialist engineers to remain focused on their disciplines. 

This is a deeply hands-on engineering role, not a project management or people management position. 

The Hardware Integration Engineer works across Mechanical Engineering, Electronics, Embedded Software and Flight Test to ensure complete UAV systems are successfully integrated, debugged, validated and ready for flight. 

The role combines practical engineering with technical leadership of prototype execution. 
 

Core Responsibilities 

Hardware Integration & Prototype Execution 

• Own the transition from subsystem designs to complete flight-ready prototypes.
• Lead prototype integration, hardware bring-up and multidisciplinary debugging.
• Identify and resolve integration issues before they become flight test problems.
• Ensure prototypes are built, validated and technically ready for testing.

Hands-on Engineering 

Remain actively involved in engineering work across multiple disciplines, including: 

• PCB modifications, interface boards and wiring harnesses.
• Mechanical prototype components, fixtures and integration hardware.
• Hardware debugging, assembly, rework and rapid prototyping.
• Embedded bring-up and hardware validation activities where required.

The role complements specialist engineers rather than replacing them. 

Flight Test Interface 

Act as the primary Hardware Engineering interface to Flight Test by: 

• Preparing aircraft for testing.
• Ensuring tests answer the intended engineering questions.
• Supporting investigation of hardware issues.
• Driving engineering improvements from flight test results.

Flight Test owns test execution; this role owns ensuring Hardware Engineering extracts maximum learning from it. 

Hardware Enablement 

Develop tools and methods that improve hardware development, including: 

• Board validation firmware.
• Testautomation.
• Manufacturing and EOL test solutions.
• Engineering utilities and instrumentation.
• Improved prototype workflows and repeatability.

 

Role Boundaries 

Mechanical Engineering: Owns mechanical architecture and major subsystem design.

Electronics Engineering: Owns electronics architecture and major PCB development. 

Embedded Software: Owns production firmware and embedded software. 

Systems Engineering: Owns requirements, system architecture and verification strategy. 

Hardware Integration Engineering: Owns the technical execution of integrating these disciplines into validated, flight-ready hardware. 

This role is intentionally different from Systems Engineering. Systems Engineering defines how the system should work; Hardware Integration Engineering ensures the hardware is successfully built, integrated, debugged and validated. 
 

Success Measures 

Success is measured by improved engineering throughput rather than individual output. 

Examples include: 

• Reduced time from design release to flight-ready prototype.
• Reduced dependency on senior specialists for prototype integration.
• Improved prototype quality and repeatability.
• Faster resolution of hardware issues.
• Better learning from flight testing.
• Increased ability to develop multiple products in parallel.

 

Vision 

Initially, this role will be highly hands-on, personally building, integrating and debugging hardware alongside the engineering team. As TwentyFour grows, the role should evolve into the technical owner of prototype integration—establishing better integration methods, validation approaches and prototype workflows while remaining fundamentally an engineering position. 

Longer term, this capability could expand into a broader Prototype Integration function supporting multiple products, additional integration engineers and dedicated prototype infrastructure. 

The objective is not to create another management layer, but to build a scalable engineering capability that allows specialist teams to focus on designing excellent subsystems while Hardware Integration ensures those subsystems become reliable flying products.