Head of Flight Test (All Genders)

At Stark, we forge the future of European and national security through cutting-edge, AI-driven technology and unmatched engineering precision. As a premier defence technology company, our mission is clear: to equip NATO Allies and their partners  with next-generation autonomous defence platforms and advanced AI-driven software built to perform in the world’s most demanding environments.

We believe that true security stems from relentless innovation. By combining elite engineering talent with agile technology and an AI-native operational culture, Stark turns complex defence challenges into field-tested, multi-domain solutions.

WHY JOIN US

• The software and systems you work on directly protect personnel and defend European and national sovereignty.
• You will work alongside industry-leading minds on autonomous systems, advanced propulsion, and secure cyber platforms.
• We foster a fast-paced, collaborative environment where bold ideas are supported by serious R&D backing.

Your Mission

As Head of Flight Test, you own STARK’s flight test organisation end to end: the pilots and operators who fly the aircraft, the flight test engineers who design the tests and run the instrumentation, the operations managers who deliver production, experimental, and customer-facing campaigns, and the staff responsible for flight test safety and operating permits.

You will start in Germany, turning a fast-growing team into a mature flight test capability of roughly 40+ people that can execute operations in multiple locations, with requisite Operator permits (civil and military) as needed for the different classes of loitering munition and drones in STARK’s growing portfolio. 
From there you build outward to 2028: a global organisation with local units in the UK, Ukraine, and Greece, each running common STARK processes under its own national authority. You are accountable for how fast STARK tests and how safely it does so. When those two pull against each other, you make the decision and take ownership.

 

Responsibilities

Organisation & leadership

• Own the full flight test organisation across four pillars: Pilots & Operators, Flight Test Engineering, Flight Test Operations, and Safety & Compliance.
• Hire and develop the pillar leads, and build the career ladders and competency standards that take the German organisation to its ~40+-person target and beyond.
• Carry budget, headcount, schedule, and tempo accountability for flight test as a whole.

Flight test strategy & methodology

• Define STARK’s flight test strategy across all platforms (Virtus, Cascade, Gambit and the small to large scale effectors that follow).
• Own the envelope-expansion and build-up philosophy: how a test point moves from simulation to flying testbed (for example a Twin Otter-class surrogate) to the air vehicle, de-risking at each step.
• Own the master Flight Test Operations Manual (FTOM), the test-planning methodology (test cards, Flight and Test Readiness Reviews), and the flight test engineering (FTE) and instrumentation (FTI) standards.
• Own the data lifecycle: quality, traceability, and results that stand up as cerification evidence.

Flight safety & airworthiness

• Hold the independent flight test safety function: Safety Review Boards, hazard analysis, risk acceptance, abort criteria, and emergency response at every test site.
• Keep flight test activity inside approved limits (Permit-to-Fly, operational authorisations) and drive STARK toward its LUC and DOA-grade airworthiness posture.
• Give safety dissent a hard, codified path to the Accountable Manager that schedule pressure cannot override.

Campaign delivery

• Deliver three campaign types through the Operations pillar: production-acceptance flights at volume, developmental flight tests  for engineering, and customer-facing demonstration and qualification flights.
• Stand up a high-throughput production-acceptance regime as delivery contracts convert to volume, and run it as its own discipline, in parallel to the engineering flight tests.
• Be responsible for flight operations, from obtaining permits, ensuring team and equipment logistics, and crew resource management  and training across German and international test locations.

Regulatory interface & the 2028 build

• Act as STARK’s senior flight test interface to LBA, LufABw, BAAINBw / WTD, and EASA in Germany.
• Decide which global processes shall apply (methodology, safety framework, FTE/FTI standards, data tooling, competency standards) and what is owned by local flight test teams  (authority interface, named postholders, operational approvals).
• Stand up local flight test organizations in the UK, Ukraine, and Greece that report into the global function and run national procedures on top of the common baseline.
• Appoint the accountable safety and airworthiness postholders each national authority requires, for example, the MAA / CFAOS Accountable Manager (Military Flying) in the UK.

Your first 12 months

 

Required Skills

Required

• 12+ years in flight test, military aviation, or aerospace test and evaluation, including 5+ years leading flight test  teams or organisations.
• A track record of building or running a flight test capability, with end-to-end accountability for campaigns from test plan to certification evidence.
• Working knowledge of UAV operating permits (EASA  "specific" category, and/or military airworthiness DEMAR / EMAR).
• A grounding in flight test engineering, and data analysis.
• Business-fluent English (C1+); German at working level for the authority interface, or a credible plan to get there.
• NATO member-state citizen, eligible for German security clearance (Ü2/Ü3), and willing to build teams on the ground in the UK, Ukraine, and Greece.

Preferred

• Graduate of a recognised test pilot school (ETPS, EPNER, USNTPS, NTPS) or a flight test engineering long course.
• UAS, loitering-munitions, or eVTOL flight test background.
• Prior Design Organisation experience and named postholder / Form 4 acceptance.
• Experience standing up flight test operations in more than one country.
• Working knowledge of STANAG 4586 and STANAG 4671.

Mindset

• Safety authority first: You hold the line when the schedule pushes against it, and people trust the call because you have earned it.
• Builder by instinct: You have written the processes and stood up the teams before, and you would rather build an organisation than inherit one.
• Regulator-credible: Colonels, certification inspectors, and junior technicians all get what they need from you, in the right register.
• Comfortable with tempo: STARK tests fast and fails forward on purpose, and you keep that pace without letting safety slip.

 

If you're interested in building the future of European Defence with us, and you see yourself reflected on the description above, please send us your CV in English. We're looking forward to meeting you!

 

SECURITY CLEARANCE

Due to the nature of our work in the defence sector, candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain the appropriate security clearance required for this position. Details will be provided during the recruitment process.

 

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

We are an equal-opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

 

DATA PRIVACY STATEMENT

This data privacy statement, which refers exclusively to data collected as part of the online application process, is to inform you about how your personal data that is collected as part of the online application process is handled at our end.

The controller

The controller under data protection law is:

SKD SE

Französische Strasse 12, 10117 Berlin

Commercial register entry number: HRB 260878

Registration Court: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg

Data Protection officer: heyData GmbH, Schützenstraße 5, 10117 Berlin, www.heydata.eu, datenschutz@heydata.eu

Personal data collected as part of the application process

Personal data means any information concerning the personal or material circumstances of an identified or identifiable individual. This includes information such as, for example, your name, address, telephone number and date of birth, but also data relating to your specific career etc. by reference to which a specific individual can be identified with reasonable effort. However, information which cannot be (in)directly associated with your real-life identity is not personal data.

Fundamentals and purposes of processing personal data collected from application documents and during the application process

If you apply to us electronically, i.e. via e-mail or using our online form, we will collect and process your personal data for the purpose of executing the application process and preparing contracts.

By submitting an application via our recruitment website, you express your interest in taking up work with us. In this context, you transmit personal data, which we will use and store exclusively for the purpose of your job search / application process.

In particular, the following data is collected during this process:

• name (first and last names)
• e-mail address
• phone number
• LinkedIn profile (optional)
• channel through which you found us

Furthermore, you can choose to upload expressive documents such as a cover letter, your CV and reference letters. These may contain additional personal data such as date of birth, address etc.

Only authorized HR staff and/or staff involved in the application process have access to your data.

The personal data is stored, as a rule, exclusively for the purpose of filling the vacancy for which you have applied.

Your data will be stored for a period of 180 days after the application process has been concluded. This is usually done to fulfill legal requirements and/or defending ourselves against any claims arising from legal provisions. After this period, we are obligated to delete or anonymize your data. In case of anonymization, the data will only be available to us in the form of so-called metadata, without any direct personal reference, for statistical analysis (for example, share of male and/or female applicants, number of applications per specified period of time etc.).

Furthermore, we reserve the right to store your data for 180 days after the application process has been concluded for the purpose of adding it to our Talent Pool in order to identify any other vacancies that may be of interest to you. This includes, for example, applications for apprenticeships or internships. By accepting the data privacy statement, you consent to any further storage of your data as well as its inclusion in our Talent Pool.

Should you be offered and accept a position with us during the application process, we will store the personal data collected as part of the application process for at least the duration of your employment.

Disclosure of data to third parties

Data transmitted as part of your application will be transferred using TLS encryption and stored in a database. This database is operated by Greenhouse, which offers a human resource and applicant management software solution (https://www.greenhouse.com/data-processing-addendum). In this context, Greenhouse is our processor under article 28 of the GDPR. In this case, the processing is based on an agreement for the processing of orders between us as the controller and Greenhouse.

Rights of data subjects

If we as the controller process personal data, you as the data subject have certain rights under Chapter III of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), depending on the legal basis and the purpose of the processing, in particular the right of access (article 15 of the GDPR) and the rights to rectification (article 16 of the GDPR), erasure (article 17 of the GDPR), restriction of processing (article 18 of the GDPR), and data portability (article 20 of the GDPR), as well as the right to object (article 21 of the GDPR). If the personal data is processed with your consent, you have the right to withdraw this consent under article 7 III of the GDPR.

To assert your rights as a data subject in relation to the data processed during this online application process, please refer to our Data Protection Officer (see item 2).

Concluding provisions

We reserve the right to adjust this data privacy statement at any point in time to ensure that it is in line with the current legal requirements at all times, or in order to accommodate changes in the application process or other processes. In this case, the new data privacy statement applies to any later visit of this recruitment website or any later job application.

LEGAL NOTICE

1. Information according to § 5 DDG

SKD SE
Französische Str. 12
10117 Berlin

Internet: www.stark-defence.com
E-Mail: contact@stark-defence.com

SKD SE, Berlin (registered office of the company), is a Societas Europaea (legal form for joint stock companies), registered at the district court of Berlin (Charlottenburg) under the register number: HRB 260878 B, represented by the Executive Board: Uwe Horstmann, Dr. André Schneider, Johannes Schaback, Jan-Patrick Helmsen, Martin Rost.

Chairman of the Supervisory Board is Mr. Robert Maier.

VAT ID No.: DE369778559

2. Liability

We are responsible for the content of our website in accordance with the provisions of general law. All content is created with the necessary care and to the best of our knowledge and is for information purposes only. Insofar as we refer on our Internet pages to the Internet pages of third parties by means of hyperlinks, we cannot accept any liability for guarantee that the linked content is always up to date, correct and complete, as this content is outside our responsibility and we have no influence on its future design. If, in your opinion, content violates applicable law or is inappropriate, please let us know. The legal information on this page as well as all questions and disputes in connection with the design of this website are subject to the law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

3. Data Protection

You can find our data protection information here. There you will also find the contact details of our data protection officer.

4. Copyright Information

The texts, images, photos, videos and graphics on our website are generally protected by copyright. Any unauthorized use (in particular the reproduction, editing or distribution) of this copyright-protected content is therefore prohibited. If you intend to use this content or parts thereof, please contact us in advance using the details above. If we are not ourselves the owner of the required copyright usage rights, we will endeavor to arrange contact with the entitled party.