Manager Weapons Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

Who We Are:

Aurelius Systems is a VC backed defense tech startup building autonomous, edge deployed directed energy systems for counter-UAS. We build laser weapons to shoot down drones.

We're a small team of engineers, former US military operators, and subject matter experts scaling America's directed energy dominance. The first cost effective, reliable and robust laser weapon system.

Our namesake isn't an accident. Marcus Aurelius wrote about doing the work in front of you, every day, without excuses. Henry Ford didn't wait for permission to reinvent manufacturing. That's how we operate, small team, unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable.

In addition to our San Francisco lab, we've opened a Detroit manufacturing hub and we field test weekly on our own 400-acre private range.

The Role and Impact:

Aurelius Systems is hiring an Executive Assistant to work directly alongside our founders and leadership team, owning the systems and coordination that make the company move faster.

You’ll bring structure to ambiguity, close loops quickly, and become the person people trust to just handle it.

This is not a pure Executive Assistant role. It includes scheduling and travel, but goes beyond calendaring into internal systems, documentation, vendor coordination, office operations, and high-priority cross-functional work that does not sit neatly with any one team.

Where our Operations Specialist owns the hardware floor and physical operations, this role owns the software, systems, and operating rhythm of the company. Early on, the two roles will cover for each other. Over the next 6–12 months, they will diverge as we scale.

What You'll Own:

• Executive and team scheduling, calendaring, and meeting coordination, including support for the CEO and CTO
• Travel booking, hotel coordination, and logistics for team travel, demos, offsites, and visits
• Vendor coordination, renewals, contracts, and business-side office administration
• Internal documentation, trackers, and knowledge bases that stay current and usable
• Internal tools and SaaS administration, including provisioning, access, and renewals
• Visitor coordination, NDAs, scheduling, and site-visit logistics
• Office coordination and onboarding logistics as the company scales
• Special projects, follow-through, and high-priority operational work that needs a clear owner

What We're Looking For:

• 2–5 years of experience in executive operations, business operations, founder’s office, executive support, chief-of-staff-adjacent work, consulting, banking, or another high-output generalist role
• Exceptional organizational ability and comfort managing many threads at once
• Strong judgment and the ability to turn a vague problem into a clear plan
• Bias toward simple systems that work now, rather than overbuilt process or enterprise tooling
• Clear, direct communication and the ability to work cleanly across leadership, teammates, and vendors
• High trust, strong follow-through, and comfort handling sensitive information
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving startup where process is still being built

Where you probably come from: A founder's associate or BizOps seat at an early-stage startup, consulting or banking where you learned to structure problems fast, or a military admin or personnel role where you ran the unit's systems and kept everything tight.

We want to talk if: You're the person everyone already comes to when they need something solved, scheduled, or figured out. You see a broken process and fix it instead of filing a ticket. When a founder calls at 10pm because something urgent came up, you want to be the one who answers.

Not a fit if: You want a pure EA or calendar-only role, you're looking for hardware or facilities work (that's our Operations Specialist), you default to "what software should we buy" before "what can I build in an hour," or you wait for written process before you'll act.

Nice to Haves:

• Experience at a startup or high-growth tech company
• Familiarity with project management tools
• Veteran with military admin, personnel, or S-1 background
• Experience administering SaaS stacks and access controls

Education:

No degree required. Proof matters here.

How You Operate:

• Extreme bias for action. You'd rather solve it now than schedule a meeting about it.
• You handle problems before they hit anyone's inbox.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment.
• Clear communicator across the team, leadership, and vendors.
• Self-directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told.

Why Join Aurelius Systems?

• Build more in 1 month than most people build in 1 year. We field test weekly. Your work makes the whole team faster.
• Work directly with the founders. At ~10 engineers, there are no layers between you and the people running the company.
• Work on a problem that actually matters. Small, cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer with infinite magazine, near-zero cost per shot, scalable to every base, border, facility, and truck.
• Join the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country. California is where the next generation of defense companies are being built.

How We Work:

We work Monday through Friday, 9 to 6, most Saturdays, and some evenings, although not constant. Supporting the whole company across engineering, operations, and leadership is the core of this role. We don't manufacture intensity for show; the pace is real because the work is real.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary + equity
• United Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Flexible 18 days PTO + 5 sick days
• Travel to field test events and range days
• Covered daily lunches and office snacks + drinks
• E-bike / scooter stipend (Up to $500)
• Direct access to leadership and real ownership over your work

Export Control Notice:

This role requires access to export-controlled information or items that require "U.S. Person" status. As defined by U.S. law, individuals who are any one of the following are considered to be a "U.S. Person": (1) U.S. citizens, (2) legal permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), and (3) certain protected classes of asylees and refugees, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).