Help shape the body of Europe’s next-generation stealth combat drone

📍 Location: Romania / Remote (Hybrid preferred)
🕒 Full-time | Department: Engineering – C1 Strigoi Program
🌐 Company: Kalkan Defense Systems (KDS)

🚀 About the Mission

At Kalkan Defense, we're designing the C1 Strigoi, a stealthy, AI-driven UCAV platform intended to redefine combat airpower in Europe. Our goal: a drone that’s fast, maneuverable, modular, and undetectable.

To get there, we need a Structures Design Engineer who can craft an airframe that's lightweight, strong, and stealth-optimized — built for performance and survivability.

🛩️ The Role

As Airframe / Structures Design Engineer, you’ll be responsible for the detailed design of the aircraft’s physical structure — from internal ribs and spars to composite skin panels, landing gear mounts, and payload bays. Your work will be central to balancing aerodynamic shaping, strength, radar signature reduction, and manufacturability.

You’ll collaborate closely with the aerodynamicist, stealth engineer, propulsion integrator, and flight control team to ensure a seamless integration of all systems into a single optimized airframe.

🔧 Responsibilities

• Design the primary and secondary structure of the C1 Strigoi airframe

• Develop internal frameworks (bulkheads, spars, ribs, mounting interfaces)

• Select materials (composites, alloys, coatings) based on strength-to-weight, stealth, and heat performance

• Integrate access panels, internal system routes, and weapon bay interfaces

• Optimize structure for manufacturing: tooling, composite layup, CNC

• Prepare 3D CAD models, technical drawings, and FEA pre-processing files

• Collaborate with stealth, propulsion, and system teams to ensure alignment

✅ You Should Have

• 3+ years in structural or airframe design (preferably UAV, aerospace, or defense)

• Expertise in structural modeling using CATIA, NX, or SolidWorks

• Solid understanding of load paths, static/dynamic loading, and fatigue life

• Experience working with composite structures and advanced lightweight materials

• Familiarity with FEA tools (Nastran, ANSYS, or similar)

• Ability to read aerodynamic and systems constraints and design around them

• Strong documentation and 3D modeling skills

💡 Bonus Skills

• Experience with stealth-optimized structural layouts (internal bays, S-curved inlets, etc.)

• Worked on high-speed or supersonic airframes

• Hands-on experience with prototype or low-volume aircraft manufacturing

• Exposure to defense design standards and requirements

🎯 What We Offer

• A front-line role in shaping a sovereign European UCAV

• Competitive compensation + equity options (founder-level track for key engineers)

• Remote flexibility, direct collaboration with elite aerospace experts

• Exposure to EDA, NATO, and Romanian defense grant projects

• Direct pathway to prototype and flight test involvement