Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Avionics Engineer

🎯 Role Definition

An Avionics Engineer designs, develops, integrates, verifies, and supports aircraft electronic systems and software, including flight controls, navigation, communication, mission systems, and cockpit displays. This role requires hands-on embedded software and hardware experience, deep familiarity with aviation certification standards (DO-178C, DO-254), and a strong background in systems engineering, integration and verification, and supplier collaboration. The ideal candidate is skilled at translating system requirements into testable designs, leading test campaigns (lab, HIL and flight), diagnosing complex issues, and supporting certification and production readiness activities.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Electrical / Electronics Engineer (entry-level or graduate roles)
Embedded Software Engineer or Firmware Engineer
Aerospace or Avionics Technician transitioning into engineering

Advancement To:

Senior Avionics Engineer / Principal Avionics Engineer
Systems Engineering Lead or Flight Systems Lead
Certification Manager or Compliance Lead (DO-178C / DO-254)
Engineering Manager or Director, Avionics

Lateral Moves:

Flight Test Engineer
Systems Engineer (Requirements / Verification / Validation)
Hardware Design Engineer (FPGA/PCB)
Embedded Software Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead the architecture, design and implementation of avionics systems and embedded software modules, ensuring alignment with system-level requirements, safety objectives, and certification plans (DO-178C / DO-254).
Develop, maintain and trace requirements from stakeholder needs through design, implementation, verification and certification artifacts using requirements management tools (e.g., IBM DOORS, Polarion).
Design, implement and debug embedded software in C/C++ (and Ada where applicable) for RTOS-based platforms (VxWorks, QNX, FreeRTOS), ensuring deterministic behavior, memory safety, and real-time performance.
Architect and design FPGA logic (VHDL/Verilog) and collaborate with hardware engineers to implement DO-254-compliant designs; create and review low-level hardware/software interface specifications.
Create and execute comprehensive verification and validation plans including unit tests, integration tests, system tests, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), lab bench testing and flight test campaigns; document results and close verification anomalies.
Define and implement software and system-level test harnesses, automated regression suites and continuous integration pipelines for avionics software to support repeatable certification evidence.
Lead root cause analysis and corrective action for anomalies, leveraging data from flight logs, telemetry, software traces, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers and protocol analyzers to drive hardware and software fixes.
Develop and review certification artifacts: safety assessments (FMEA/FHA/FTA), software plans (PSAC, SDP, SVP), verification reports, configuration management records and DO-178C/DO-254 compliance matrices.
Integrate avionics line-replaceable units (LRUs) and modular subsystems into aircraft architectures, performing functional integration, interface verification (ARINC 429, ARINC 664/AFDX, MIL‑STD‑1553, CAN, Ethernet) and end-to-end data flow validation.
Collaborate with systems engineering, mechanical, electrical, test, quality and production teams to ensure manufacturability, testability and sustainment considerations are addressed early in the design cycle.
Provide subject matter expertise for avionics interface control documents (ICDs), pinout definitions, harness and connector specifications, and perform design reviews with suppliers and subcontractors.
Drive trade studies and performance analysis for avionics architectures, doing latency, throughput, CPU utilization and resource budgeting to meet SWaP-C (size, weight, power & cost) constraints.
Author and review technical specifications, interface requirements, verification protocols, test cases and engineering change requests (ECRs), maintaining traceability and justification for design decisions.
Manage configuration control, build and release processes for avionics software and FPGA images; ensure reproducible builds, secure baselines and adherence to DO-178C tool qualification guidance where required.
Support flight test planning and execution, including test procedure development, instrumentation, safety briefings and in-flight troubleshooting and data capture to validate avionics performance in operational conditions.
Mentor junior engineers and technicians on avionics best practices, verification techniques, and certification requirements, promoting knowledge transfer and engineering rigor across the team.
Interface with customers, regulatory authorities (FAA, EASA) and certification agents to present verification evidence, respond to technical queries and support compliance audits and audits of supplier artifacts.
Establish and maintain manufacturing test procedures, acceptance test protocols (ATP), and failure analysis processes for production units; support FAA/EASA production approvals and customer acceptance testing.
Lead reliability, maintainability and obsolescence management efforts for avionics hardware and software, aligning sustainment strategies with fleet support organizations and aftermarket services.
Implement cybersecurity considerations for avionics software and data links, performing threat assessments, partitioning, and safeguards consistent with DO-326A/ED‑202 guidance where applicable.
Participate in cross-disciplinary Agile or V-model project teams, contributing to sprint planning, technical risk assessments, schedule estimates and successful on-time delivery of avionics subsystems.

Secondary Functions

Support configuration management, change control boards and release note generation for avionics baselines; ensure traceability between requirements, code, tests and certification artifacts.
Provide technical support to manufacturing, test labs and field service teams to resolve production or in-service anomalies and support corrective actions and product upgrades.
Contribute to supplier selection, technical audits and partner onboarding; review supplier design outputs and test results to ensure compliance with avionics requirements and quality standards.
Maintain and improve lab infrastructure including HIL rigs, test benches, telemetry recorders, and automated test frameworks to increase test throughput and repeatability.
Participate in continuous improvement initiatives for avionics development lifecycle, including process infusions for DO-178C/DO-254, tool qualification, and model-based design adoption (MATLAB/Simulink).
Produce training materials and deliver hands-on sessions for cross-functional teams on avionics interfaces, diagnostics, and flight test safety procedures.
Support proposals and technical bids by producing technical content, estimates, work breakdown structures and risk assessments for avionics system deliverables.
Assist in gathering and preparing customer-facing documentation: user manuals, installation guides, maintenance manuals, and post-delivery support plans.
Evaluate new component, processor and FPGA technologies and provide recommendations for qualification, lifecycle management and future roadmap incorporation.
Engage in program-level risk management activities, identifying, tracking and mitigating technical and schedule risks related to avionics development and certification.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proven proficiency in embedded software development in C and C++ for safety-critical avionics systems; familiarity with Ada is a plus.
Hands-on experience with real-time operating systems (VxWorks, QNX, FreeRTOS, INTEGRITY) and deterministic embedded scheduling/design patterns.
Deep understanding and practical application of certification standards (DO-178C for software, DO-254 for hardware) and experience preparing certification artifacts.
Working knowledge of common avionics data buses and protocols (ARINC 429, ARINC 664/AFDX, MIL-STD-1553, CAN, Ethernet) and diagnostic/trace tools for bus analysis.
FPGA design skills with VHDL or Verilog, plus toolchain experience (Xilinx/Intel/Altera toolflows); understanding of DO-254 implications for FPGA/ASIC development.
Model-based design experience using MATLAB/Simulink and auto-code generation workflows; experience validating generated code for certification acceptance.
Experience with systems engineering practices: requirements decomposition, traceability matrices, verification planning, FHA/FMEA, and use of requirement management tools (IBM DOORS, Polarion).
Experience with hardware bring-up, PCB debug, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, boundary-scan, and lab instrumentation for avionics hardware troubleshooting.
Familiarity with continuous integration, automated test frameworks, version control (Git), build systems and basic DevOps practices applied to avionics engineering.
Strong test and verification skills: developing test benches, HIL integration, scripting test automation with Python or other languages, and analyzing test telemetry datasets.
Knowledge of safety and cybersecurity principles for aerospace (FHA, FMEA, ARP4754A guidance, DO-326A) and experience implementing partitions, secure boot or secure communications when applicable.
Experience with avionics-specific diagnostic and telemetry tools, and the ability to parse log files, system traces and flight data records to root-cause anomalies.
Familiarity with FAA/EASA certification processes, preparation of compliance matrices and responding to certification authority findings.
Proficiency in technical writing to produce clear, concise, and auditable design documentation, verification reports and user/maintenance manuals.

Soft Skills

Excellent written and verbal communication skills for cross-discipline collaboration with systems engineers, suppliers and certification authorities.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, able to break down complex avionics issues into actionable technical tasks and mitigation plans.
Detail-oriented with rigorous documentation habits to support traceability and compliance for safety-critical systems.
Effective project and time management skills; able to prioritize tasks in a multi-project environment and meet program milestones.
Collaborative mindset with experience working in cross-functional and geographically distributed teams.
Customer-focused and responsive when supporting integration, flight test and field operations.
Adaptability and continuous learning mindset to keep up with evolving avionics standards, tools and technologies.
Leadership and mentorship capability to grow junior team members and lead small technical workstreams.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical / Electronic Engineering, Computer Engineering, Embedded Systems, or closely related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Aerospace, Systems Engineering, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or equivalent advanced technical qualification.
Certifications or coursework in avionics certification standards (DO-178C/DO-254), systems engineering (INCOSE), or safety assessment methods.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Aerospace Engineering
Electrical / Electronics Engineering
Computer Engineering / Embedded Systems
Systems Engineering
Computer Science (with embedded systems focus)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–10 years of professional experience in avionics, embedded systems or aerospace development.

Preferred:

5+ years of direct avionics development and integration experience, including exposure to certification activities (DO-178C / DO-254) and flight test support.
Demonstrated experience with embedded C/C++, RTOS-based software, hardware bring-up and integration of avionics LRUs.
Prior experience interfacing with FAA/EASA certification processes, supplier management, and production readiness activities is highly desirable.