Aeronautical Engineering Team Lead

MAKO is putting 'shark skin' on planes to save fuel and reduce emissions.

Your Mission

MAKO’s mission is to improve the efficiency of the global aviation fleet, saving billions in fuel and megatonnes of CO2 every year. We are looking for an Aeronautical Engineering Team Lead to lead the design and development of Flightfilm, our drag reducing riblet film for aviation. This includes , execution, and evaluation of complex design and development programs.

You will report to the Head of Product Engineering and work closely with Certification, Materials, Verification & Validation, Manufacturing, and Quality teams to ensure MAKO builds the best product possible.

What You Will Do

- Lead & grow a world-class team responsible for the design and development of Flightfilm - MAKO’s drag reducing riblet film for aviation
- Own the design and development strategy and deliverables, covering the design of MAKO’s riblet microstructures as well as the layout design on target aircraft and the installation process
- Ensuring the teams priorities and activities align with MAKO’s technical goals, certification roadmap, and business priorities
- Establish and maintain design standards, processes, and documentation, including systems/requirements engineering, risk management, product architecture and configuration control
- Assess and improve internal design and development processes and procedures, providing technical guidance and driving best practices in simulation, design, execution and evaluation




- Train & mentor engineers to uplift MAKO’s simulation, design, and evidence-based decision-making capability

What Success Looks Like

First Month:

- Develop a strong understanding of MAKO’s product architecture, materials behaviour, installation & removal concepts, as well as current and ongoing design and development programs
- Review existing design and simulation procedures and process documentation, reports, risk registers, and evaluation methods
- Build working relationships across Certification, Materials, Verification & Validation and Manufacturing teams

First Six Months:

- Take ownership and lead the team through key design programs targeting certification and regulatory approval of Mako’s first product
- Lead improvements to simulation and design methodologies, systems engineering processes, templates, and risk-based planning approaches
- Drive higher confidence, efficiency, and clarity in test execution and reporting

First Year:

- You will have grown the team in capability, ensuring professional development plans address key capability needs
- Establish MAKO-wide best practices for aero design, systems engineering, simulation and risk management




- Have defined MAKO’s longer-term aeronautical design & development strategies

About You

- Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering or similar
- Track record leading cross-disciplinary teams in highly technical, highly regulated fields such as aerospace, medical or automotive
- Demonstrated experience designing and leading complex product design & development programs
- Strong understanding of fluid mechanics principles and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
- Thrive in a fast-moving, ambiguous and constantly evolving startup setting
- You enjoy mentoring junior and senior engineers and leading them to make evidence based technical decisions with confidence and clarity

Why You Should Join Mako

- Impact: Aviation is one of the hardest to abate industries, and its share of global emissions is only growing. Join our mission to improve the efficiency of the global fleet and save millions of tonnes of CO2 every year
- Technology: Our technology leverages the drag-reducing properties of shark skin to make aircraft more efficient. You'll be exposed to expertise and developments in materials, photolithography, fluid dynamics, and scale manufacturing
- Team: Our team focuses on achieving our mission. We live our values of lift over drag, active transparency, and changing the boundary conditions, and we welcome new team members who want to do the same
- Corporate Jet: We have (most of) a corporate jet. It won't fly, but it sure does look cool

📌 Aeronuatical Engineer Team Lead (Sydney)
🏢 Mako
📍 Sydney