Senior Airworthiness & Certification Engineer

Merlin (NASDAQ: MRLN) is a publicly traded aerospace and defense company building a non-human pilot to deliver full-stack autonomy for any aircraft from takeoff to touchdown. The Merlin Pilot autonomy system powers a growing range of aircraft and mission profiles and has been proven through hundreds of autonomous flights from Merlin's global flight test facilities, including Kerikeri, New Zealand; Quonset Point, Rhode Island; and soon, Bedford, Massachusetts. Headquartered in Boston, Merlin is expanding its organization to accelerate the development and deployment of its autonomy platform, helping customers solve some of aviation's most pressing challenges, from pilot shortages to improving flight safety. Backed by some of the world's leading investors prior to its public listing, Merlin continues to advance the certification and commercialization of autonomous flight across commercial and defense aviation.

You are a hands-on airworthiness & certification engineer who owns certification work directly. You lead compliance activities for defined certification workstreams, resolve complex compliance challenges, interface confidently with regulatory authorities (military and civil), and mentor engineers. You communicate effectively with regulatory authorities on assigned technical topics.

Merlin builds autonomous aviation systems for civil and defense customers. The Airworthiness & Certification organization needs an experienced certification engineer who can lead complex technical areas through the military airworthiness and civil certification process. You will lead certification documentation and compliance activities for a defined technical area, interface directly with regulatory authorities, and mentor junior and mid-level certification engineers within the Airworthiness & Certification and Engineering organizations. If you want ownership over meaningful technical certification work with room to broaden across both military and civil domains, this is the role for you.

Execute the certification strategy and technical approach for a major program or product line.

Contribute to planning, developing, and coordinating important engineering projects.

Lead certification documentation and compliance activities for complex technical areas (structures, systems, avionics, or flight controls).

Develop and apply cross-functional competency in military and industry airworthiness standards — MIL-SPECs, MIL-STDs, DEF STANs, JSSG-2001, and MIL-HDBK-516 — and guide engineering teams in developing compliant designs.

Author and manage Issue Papers (IPs), Certification Review Items (CRIs), and Military Certification Review Items (MCRIs), and drive them to closure.

Interface directly with regulatory representatives, airworthiness authorities and sponsoring offices (e.g., USAF, U.S. Army Aviation, NAVAIR, FAA, EASA) on assigned certification topics.

Drive certification program schedules, identifying compliance risks and implementing mitigation strategies to ensure timely approvals.

Support civil certification programs and activities as needed, applying 14 CFR Part 21/23/25 and applicable advisory circulars alongside civil certification authorities.

Manage regulatory audits, conformity inspections, and test witnessing activities.

Contribute to standardizing and scaling Merlin's airworthiness and certification processes and provide technical assistance to certification engineers across departments.

Manage Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) prerequisites, draft TIAs, and secure approvals across programs.

Manage the designee program including appointment and oversight; maintain an internal registry of available designee resources.

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.

6-9 years of aerospace certification experience, including direct interface with airworthiness or certification authorities.

Proven ability to work both independently and embedded within cross-functional engineering teams.

Direct, hands-on experience taking military airworthiness or civil certification programs from certification basis development through closure.

Strong written and verbal communication skills and project management capability.

Working knowledge of 14 CFR Part 21, 23, 25, and applicable advisory circulars, sufficient to support civil certification activities.

Demonstrated ability to interface with military airworthiness authorities (e.g., USAF, U.S. Army Aviation, NAVAIR, MAA) and to conduct meetings with regulatory agencies.

U.S. citizenship, and an active Secret clearance or a clear path to one (as required by program assignment).

Working knowledge of military airworthiness standards (MIL-SPECs, MIL-STDs, DEF STANs) sufficient to lead an existing program independently.

Deep civil certification/validation experience with FAA (Part 23/25) and/or EASA (CS-23/25) programs.

Knowledge of systems engineering principles — requirements decomposition, V&V planning, and configuration management.

Working familiarity in software and hardware assurance standards (DO-178C, DO-254, MIL-STD-882).

Working knowledge of safety assessment methodologies: FHA, FMEA/FMECA, FTA, and common cause analysis.

Working knowledge of emerging aerospace technologies such as electric propulsion, UAVs, or advanced air mobility is highly desirable.

Working knowledge of FAA military certification processes and interaction with FAA Military Certification Branch (MCB, formerly Military Certification Office (MCO)).