Seven to 10 years. That is how long defense organizations would typically take to move from a stated requirement to a fielded system. Today, those customers are asking for a year or less.
For more than 15 years, Fuse Integration, a San Diego-based defense technology company, has built secure networked systems for the tactical edge. That depth is how the team moves fast today.
Shorter Loops, Faster Answers
The traditional waterfall method for building complex systems is the classic systems engineering "V," a sequential, process-heavy path from requirements to delivery. Followed to the letter, it can produce a system that satisfies every checkpoint and still misses the need. Feedback arrives late, and changes in the field are difficult to absorb.
"Measurement can become a substitute for understanding," says Fuse Director of Engineering and Technology, Jason Wilden. He is quick to add that the waterfall model has its place. The issue is the length of the feedback loop.
By contrast, Fuse works in small, measurable increments, asking a simple question at each one: are we trending in the right direction? If the answer is no, the team corrects course or goes back to the customer with a proposal. Sometimes that means removing an obstacle. Other times it means finding a way around it.
"It's all about empowering the knowledge worker, and not blindly following a process without understanding," says Wilden.
Fuse’s open, usable architecture lets engineers integrate a new piece of gear in days. Elsewhere, the same work can take weeks or months of interface design and protocol wrangling. It is a big reason the team could say “yes” when the Air Force recently asked for an entire system in six days.
Putting the Warfighter in the Room
Speed only matters if the result gets used. Fuse insists on pulling end users into the design process through what it calls Warfighter Workshops. Over a few days, service members sit down with the company's user experience and design team. They describe how they do their jobs today, what works in current systems, and what they wish they could change. Engineers facilitate an exploration of the possibilities, constraints, and the reasoning behind their ideas. Fuse's design process then brings those users back to review early prototypes and test how well their input was captured.
According to Wilden, participant reaction is often the same: “Oh, wow, this is so easy. Thanks for listening to us.” The dialogue continues for the life of the program, and the payoff is technology that is intuitive on day one: warfighter users operate it without an engineer standing by to explain or support.
Rigor is Part of the Speed
Going fast does not mean skipping steps. "Yes, we go fast. We also do the analysis, we do the math, we do the modeling, we do the testing," says Wilden. "Moving quickly does not mean we're sacrificing engineering rigor."
The company can digitally fly a system before flying it for real, which surfaces problems when they are cheapest to fix. Fuse also operates its own Test Squadron using its own Cessna O-2A and Rockwell OV-10 Bronco aircraft, as well as access to other aircraft, giving engineers immediate feedback from real flight.
The People Behind the Pace
The company's teams span software, cyber, network, design, systems, user experience, mechanical, and electrical engineering. Each discipline brings its own lens to a problem, and the conversation among them is where new ideas emerge.
When hiring, Fuse looks for people who are curious, technically capable, collaborative, comfortable with ambiguity, and willing to take ownership. Professionals who can put an idea in front of the team, discover part of it is wrong, change it, and keep moving. Humility matters too.
Growing the Team
Demand for that mix of skills is strong. 2026 has been the busiest hiring year in Fuse's history, with more than 20 active job openings. Candidates can explore the company's careers page and browse current open positions for specifics.
For Wilden, the pitch to a prospective engineer starts with the satisfaction of seeing their work make a difference in the hands of the warfighter. "There are lots of places where talented engineers can go work on interesting technology," he says. "What's different about Fuse is the proximity between the engineer and the mission."
On programs with long feedback loops, engineers can spend years refining plans and requirements for a product that arrives late or misses the need. At Fuse, products get developed and delivered, and the people who built them get to see what they do for the warfighter.
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