Poseidon Aerospace · 10 hours ago
Director of Certification
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Director/Executive
10+ years expPoseidon Aerospace is seeking a Director of Certification who will own the aircraft certification and airworthiness strategy for unmanned logistics platforms. This role involves defining and executing the regulatory pathway, ensuring development and testing efforts align with certification evidence requirements.
Airlines/Aviation
Responsibilities
Develop and maintain Poseidon’s Certification Master Plan, including certification basis, means of compliance, evidence strategy, and phased approval pathways
Define what elements are in scope for near-term certification versus deferred or alternative approval paths
Establish assumptions, risks, and decision gates tied to configuration freeze and test milestones
Serve as Poseidon’s primary point of contact with the FAA and other relevant authorities
Lead preparation for regulator engagements, technical briefings, and formal submissions
Drive resolution of certification issues and alignment on expectations
Translate regulatory expectations into clear, actionable engineering requirements across structures, propulsion, avionics, autonomy, command and control, and operations
Ensure certification considerations are incorporated early into system architecture and design decisions
Establish lightweight but effective compliance tracking and configuration control
Partner with flight test and engineering teams to align test planning with certification evidence needs
Distinguish between engineering learning tests and certification-relevant tests to maximize return on test investment
Define data collection, analysis, and reporting standards for certification use
Select and manage external certification resources including DERs, consultants, test labs, and conformity support
Coordinate conformity planning and compliance expectations with suppliers and partners
Help define the long-term structure of Poseidon’s certification and airworthiness organization
Mentor and grow internal certification capability as the program scales
Qualification
Required
10+ years of experience in aircraft certification, airworthiness, or regulatory compliance leadership
Demonstrated ownership of certification programs involving regulator engagement, certification basis definition, and means of compliance
Experience aligning engineering development and flight test programs with certification objectives
Ability to operate independently in ambiguous, first-of-type or novel aircraft environments
Strong communication skills with the ability to explain certification risk and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders
Preferred
Experience with unmanned aircraft, novel configurations, or autonomy-enabled systems
Prior experience negotiating special conditions or non-standard certification pathways
Background working with DERs, ODAs, or equivalent certification partners
Experience bridging military airworthiness and civil certification expectations
Company
Poseidon Aerospace
Poseidon Aerospace develops autonomous sea-based aircraft designed to transport cargo using ground effect flight.
2-10 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageTotal Funding
$12.5MKey Investors
Tamarack GlobalStarship Ventures
2025-11-05Seed· $11M
2023-11-02Pre Seed· $1.5M
Recent News
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