Mission Operator - UAV
- Location
- Paso Robles, CA
- Listed
- 2 days ago
About the role
The future of defense will be decided by those who field intelligent machines at scale. At Scout AI, we’re developing Fury, the first robotic foundation model for defense, to give U.S. forces overwhelming, adaptable, and autonomous power across every domain. Fury enables human operators to command fleets of robots through natural language, and empowers those machines to sense, decide, and act together as one. This mission will ask everything of us: urgency, precision, and relentless work.
The Role
We're hiring a UAV Mission Operator to lead the drone side of our Mission Operations team, Swarm Forge: our AI mission commander, directing a swarm of smaller drones to search, identify, and strike with minimal human input.
You'll lead the drone operator team, own the flight test pipeline, and run the live customer demonstrations to ensure systems are prepared for both internal testing and external deployment.
You'll work in close partnership with our Flight Test Engineer: the Flight Test Engineer owns the technical depth of test design and instrumentation, and you own execution, the team, and everything customer-facing. Together you decide what gets tested, in what order, and what engineering hears back.
Responsibilities
- Lead and schedule the drone operator team day to day
- Partner with the Flight Test Engineer to drive product development on the air platform - shaping test priorities, splitting execution, and turning results into engineering asks
- Own execution of Development Test Requests and flight test plans across the Ax4, Archer, and Neros fleet, working directly with engineering on results and next steps
- Validate new software, model, and orchestrator releases in flight, and catch regressions before they reach a customer or a demo
- Plan and run customer- and investor-facing drone demonstrations, including live-fly events and vendor days
- Own customer training and support, including training Army and customer personnel on Scout's drone systems
- Track fleet readiness and maintenance across the UAS fleet
- Coordinate airspace deconfliction and hold the safety line on every flight operation
- Feed structured feedback on flight behavior, hardware issues, and software bugs back to engineering daily
Qualifications
- Hands-on UAS/drone operations experience - piloting, mission planning, or direct oversight of drone operations
- 3+ years of experience operating, maintaining, or testing unmanned aerial systems (UAS), drones, or similar platforms
- Demonstrated team leadership, not just individual flying or engineering
- Comfortable working directly with engineers daily - triaging bugs, validating builds, giving feedback specific enough to act on
- Able to co-own product development with a technical peer
- Experience running live demonstrations or training sessions for military or customer stakeholders
- Strong organizational skills - able to build a schedule, a readiness tracker, and a team rhythm where none exists yet
- Working knowledge of drone safety procedures, airspace coordination, and incident reporting
- Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities
- Passion about defense of the United States and its allies
- May be expected to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
Benefits
- Competitive cash compensation
- Meaningful equity
- Premium medical, dental, and vision plans with $0 paycheck contribution
- Competitive PTO and company holiday calendar
- Catered lunch daily and fully stocked kitchen
- EV charging
- Relocation assistance (depending on role eligibility)
Why Join Scout
- Work on the world’s most important frontier, ensuring U.S. and allied dominance in the age of intelligent machines
- Be a core part of a team building the first defense-specific robotic foundation model
- Collaborate with some of the top engineers in autonomy, AI, and national security
- See your work deployed on real systems
- Help define the future of intelligent defense systems
- Backed by Draper Associates, Booz Allen Ventures, and other top investors
From Scout Ai's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on November 7, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.
How Rolev.ai helps with this application
Rolev.ai is a job search and application tool for US job seekers. For this Mission Operator - UAV role at Scout Ai, it shows how your resume fits, tailors your resume to the posting, and prepares the application for you to review.
See how you fit
Openings from employer career sites are ranked against your whole resume—and searchable inside Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor via Rolev.ai MCP.
Tailor without inventing
Every change to your resume is checked against your original. New experience goes in only with your yes—zero fabricated claims.
Draft the full kit
Tailored and Full Match resumes, role-specific cover letters, and answers to employer screening questions are prepared in seconds.
1-Click Extension Autofill
The Chrome extension fills the employer's Greenhouse, Workday, Lever, or Ashby form in 1 click. You review it and press Submit.
Similar roles
More at Scout Ai
All Scout Ai jobsCommon questions
Where is the Mission Operator - UAV job at Scout Ai located?
This Mission Operator - UAV position at Scout Ai is located in Paso Robles, CA. Always check Scout Ai's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.
How do I apply for the Mission Operator - UAV position at Scout Ai?
This listing links directly to Scout Ai's Ashby application page. You can apply directly on Scout Ai's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the Ashby application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.