GNC Engineer - Controls

Responsibilities

Control Law Analysis & Tuning
• Analyze existing control laws against stability and performance criteria such as gain and phase margins, bandwidth, disturbance rejection, and command tracking.
• Tune control law gains and parameters with CONDUIT to meet these criteria across the flight envelope.
• Assess how actuator and sensor dynamics, time delays, and saturation affect control system stability and performance.
• Update control law gains and parameters in our MATLAB and Simulink models and support their release into flight software.
Simulation & Verification
• Run Monte Carlo studies in our existing simulation environment that vary aircraft parameters, disturbances, and failures to evaluate control law robustness.
• Help identify worst-case conditions and failure scenarios for simulation-based verification, and run and analyze those cases.
• Set up and improve automated integration tests that simulate complete flight missions and check the results against requirements.
Flight Test & Data Analysis
• Support and analyze flight tests, comparing flight data with simulation predictions to assess control performance and refine tuning.
• Document analyses, tuning changes, and test results to support verification activities.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.

Experience

• 2+ years of industry experience in GNC or flight controls, or a Master’s or PhD with research focused on control systems or flight dynamics.
• Strong foundation in linear control theory, including transfer functions, state-space models, and frequency-domain analysis such as Bode and Nichols plots and stability margins.
• Solid understanding of aircraft flight dynamics, including equations of motion, linearization, and dynamic stability modes.
• Hands-on experience analyzing and tuning feedback control systems, such as cascaded PID loops, on hardware or in high-fidelity simulation, whether through industry, research, student teams, or personal projects.
• Experience using simulation to evaluate control system performance, including Monte Carlo or parametric studies.
• Proficiency in MATLAB and Simulink for control design, modeling, and simulation.
• Proficiency in Python or MATLAB for analyzing test and flight data.
• Proficiency in C or C++ for writing application-level code.
• Strong analytical, debugging, and communication skills, and the ability to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering or a related field, with a focus on flight controls or flight dynamics.
• Experience using CONDUIT for control system analysis and optimization.
• Familiarity with explicit model-following, dynamic inversion, or other control architectures used in safety-critical aviation.
• Familiarity with handling qualities and flight control specifications such as ADS-33, MIL-STD-1797, and MIL-DTL-9490.
• Experience developing flight controls for VTOL aircraft, multicopters, rotorcraft, or eVTOL platforms.
• Experience with Git, continuous integration, and agile development workflows, including automated simulation-based regression testing.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools, such as Claude, to speed up algorithm development, coding, and data analysis.
• Experience with fault detection, or with analyzing control system behavior under failure scenarios such as motor or actuator failures.
• Experience with frequency-domain system identification using CIFER or similar tools.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing and supporting flight test campaigns.
• Interest in aviation, RC aircraft, or drones.

Attributes aligned with Core Values

• Safety Above All: Demonstrates a proactive safety mindset by embedding safety into daily work, identifying and mitigating risks, encouraging open dialogue about safety concerns, and continuously improving practices and protocols.
• Customer Focus: Puts customers at the center of every action by understanding their challenges, delivering meaningful value, and supporting their success.
• Work Better Together: Seeks and values diverse perspectives, builds cross-functional relationships, and fosters trust through empathetic, fact-based communication and commitment to shared decisions.
• Be the Pilot: Drives results with clarity and purpose by focusing on what matters most, adapting to change, taking initiative, and owning outcomes.
• Embrace the Unknown: Navigates ambiguity with resilience and bold thinking, challenges the status quo, and combines innovative ideas with practical approaches to overcome obstacles and drive progress.
• Respect for People: Fosters a high-performance culture grounded in respect, professionalism, and support by balancing high expectations with a healthy, collaborative environment and being a trusted, dependable teammate.