Flight Test Instrumentation & Data Engineer

The Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) & Data Engineer will be responsible for the end-to-end handling, quality assurance, accessibility, and long-term management of all flight data. The primary objective is to ensure that full-aircraft data, from the onboard sensors and DAQ systems to the final processing tools, is available to every engineering team through a reliable, efficient, and standardized workflow. Tasks Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) & DAQ Pipeline Manage the data pipeline from the physical sensor and Data Acquisition (DAQ) level for the full aircraft, ensuring seamless and accurate transmission into the telemetry and storage systems. Maintain sensor configuration, calibration records, and metadata to guarantee the accurate translation of raw physical signals into usable engineering units. Collaborate with hardware, software and integration teams to define sensor requirements, DAQ architectures, scaling, and telemetry bandwidth allocations. Troubleshoot and resolve data anomalies at the DAQ and sensor level (e.g., signal noise, dropouts, faulty scaling) before they propagate into downstream databases. Data Infrastructure & Accessibility Maintain reliable extraction of flight data from InfluxDB. Develop and maintain standardized local data structures for analysis, plotting, and visualization. Optimize access to large flight datasets while minimizing CPU and memory usage. Design and maintain an efficient local storage solution for processed flight data. Support future improvements to the flight data architecture as storage requirements, sensor counts, and analysis needs continue to evolve. Data Quality & Analysis Support Maintain derived datasets to ensure common calculations and signals are shared consistently across teams. Ensure strict timing synchronization and timestamp accuracy across all recorded data, from the sensor acquisition point to the database. Monitor data quality, completeness, and integrity throughout the entire pipeline. Provide fast data previews for rapid post-flight reviews. Enable efficient access to high-frequency sensor data for detailed engineering investigations. Support custom querying of processed datasets. Requirements Education & Experience Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, Data Engineering, or a related technical field. 3+ years of professional experience in test instrumentation, data acquisition (DAQ), or sensor-to-database time-series data engineering (aerospace, automotive, or racing/motorsports preferred). Hands-on experience working directly with physical aircraft/vehicle sensor installations, DAQ hardware, and telemetry pipelines. Technical & Domain Expertise 1. Hardware, Sensors & DAQ Architecture Strong understanding of physical sensors (e.g., strain gauges, accelerometers, thermocouples, pressure transducers, RTDs, LVDTs, pitot-static tubes). Demonstrated knowledge of signal conditioning, sampling rate selection, anti-aliasing filtering, scaling, and sensor calibration procedures. 2. Data Infrastructure & Software Development Proficient in Python or MATLAB for data analysis, automated data processing, and visualization library development (e.g., Pandas, NumPy, SciPy). Experience working with time-series databases, specifically InfluxDB (or similar engines), including writing efficient queries (Flux/InfluxQL) and data retrieval pipelines. Solid foundation in data structures and memory/CPU optimization when handling high-memory high-frequency continuous time-series datasets. 3. Data Integrity & Signal Processing Experience with timestamping and clock synchronization protocols across distributed DAQ hardware and storage nodes. Knowledge of basic digital signal processing (DSP) concepts (filtering, FFT, spectral analysis, decimation/resampling). Soft Skills & Work Style Cross-functional communication: Ability to bridge the gap between hardware technicians, flight physics/aerodynamics engineers, and software teams. Detail-oriented mindset: Uncompromising rigor regarding calibration metadata, unit conversions, and data accuracy. Adaptability: Drive to continuously improve data infrastructure as aircraft sensor counts, test frequencies, and analytical needs expand. Preferred / Bonus Qualifications Knowledge of standard FAA / EASA flight test instrumentation requirements or military flight test standards (e.g. IRIG 106). Familiarity with dashboarding tools (e.g., Grafana) for rapid post-flight previews and real-time telemetry display. Experience with version control systems (Git) and CI/CD pipelines for internal engineering tool distribution. Direct experience with DAQ systems and digital bus protocols (CAN bus, ARINC 429, MIL-STD-1553, Ethernet/UDP, PCM). Familiarity with binary flight data formats (e.g., IRIG 106 Chapter 10/11, MDF/MF4, HDF5, Parquet, or custom binary loggers). Experience with performing on-aircraft hardware troubleshooting (e.g., tracking down ground loops, signal noise, dropouts, or faulty scaling). Find Jobs in Switzerland on Arbeitnow