About You:
You are a skilled UI/UX designer with experience designing displays in aviation, aerospace, or other safety-critical industry. You have a passion for designing displays that support operators of safety-critical systems in which an increasing number of traditionally-manual tasks are being automated. You are comfortable with and competent at working with a team of senior and junior engineers, can make and justify key decisions to the rest of the team and to stakeholders, and want to drive a team’s technical direction in close collaboration with the technical leads and engineering manager.
The Role:
- Drive the design of usable, intuitive user interfaces that enable pilots to interact with Merlin’s autonomous flight technologies.
- Conduct user research with Merlin’s pilots and potential end-users of Merlin’s systems to gather insights and validate design concepts.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams (including engineers, pilots, and software developers) to design and implement user interfaces for avionics and flight control systems.
- Ensure interface designs meet aviation standards (e.g., ARINC 661, DO-178C, FAA and EASA guidelines).
- Integrate advanced design methodologies with tools such as GLStudio, Qt, Figma, or other UI development platforms.
- Explore emerging technologies (e.g., augmented reality, AI, and voice control) for application in aviation systems.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in human factors, interaction design, industrial design, computer science, or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience in UI/UX design, preferable in aviation, aerospace, or other safety-critical industries.
- Demonstrated track record developing usable and intuitive user interfaces that enhance user situational awareness, reduce workload, and mitigate errors.
- Proficiency in user interface development tools like GLStudio, Qt, or other real-time graphical user interface platforms.
- Experience using prototyping tools (e.g., Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD).
- Familiarity with human factors principles and usability testing processes.
- Familiarity with aviation industry standards (e.g., ARINC 661, DO-178C, FAA and EASA guidelines).
- Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to convey design concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Nice to Haves:
- Master’s or Doctorate degree in human factors, interaction design, industrial design, computer science, or a related field.
- Experience using GLStudio to develop user interfaces.
- Experience with avionics systems integration and software development.
- Experience certifying pilot-vehicle interfaces on military and/or civil aircraft.
- Experience with flight testing on crewed or uncrewed aircraft.
- Familiarity with DoD and commercial open architectures such as A-GRA, OMS, FACE, and IMA.
Logistics:
- 20-30% of travel required to support team meetings, design activities, and flight testing
Top Skills
What We Do
All of the sky, none of the limits.
Merlin Labs is building the autonomous infrastructure for the sky above us, enabling goods, and eventually people, to fly without pilots.
The Merlin Labs team is building the definitive autonomy system for all things that fly. We’re creating sophisticated software and hardware that fulfill the functions of a human pilot.
