Drone Engineer Volunteer

About the role

We are seeking a passionate Drone Engineer to join our team on a volunteer basis. You will be responsible for designing and building complete drone systems, from hardware to software, and ensuring reliable autonomous operation.

Key responsibilities

• Design and build complete drone systems, including propulsion, power, flight‑control, communication, navigation, and onboard electronics.
• Design and develop PCBs for drone electronics, covering schematics, component selection, layout, power distribution, sensor interfaces, and communication circuits.
• Select and integrate motors, ESCs, propellers, batteries, flight controllers, GPS modules, IMUs, sensors, radios, and other components based on system requirements.
• Configure and integrate flight‑control platforms such as PX4, ArduPilot, or similar with the drone hardware.
• Work with Linux‑based operating systems and embedded computing environments for development, testing, and system configuration.
• Integrate and troubleshoot embedded electronics and firmware, including microcontrollers, sensors, peripherals, and communication protocols.
• Develop and configure reliable communication and telemetry systems between the drone, ground station, remote controller, and onboard systems.
• Conduct systematic ground and flight testing to evaluate stability, control response, battery performance, propulsion efficiency, communication reliability, and overall system performance.
• Diagnose and resolve electrical, electronic, power, flight‑control, software, and communication faults through testing, measurements, debugging, and hardware or firmware modifications.
• Implement, test, and improve autonomous flight capabilities such as GPS navigation, waypoint missions, telemetry, return‑to‑home, failsafes, and other required autonomous functions.

Required skills

• Drone system design and integration
• PCB schematic and layout design
• Component selection for UAVs
• Flight‑control platform configuration (PX4, ArduPilot)
• Linux‑based embedded development
• Microcontroller and sensor integration
• Telemetry and communication system development
• Autonomous flight programming and testing