Senior GNC Engineer - Flight Controls & Autonomy

Responsibilities:

Develop and improve flight control, guidance, and navigation algorithms for high-speed aircraft  
Design and implement control laws, estimation logic, and sensor fusion strategies for autonomous and piloted flight applications, with an emphasis on autonomous takeoff and landing  
Develop and analyze linear control models and dynamic system representations to support controller design, stability analysis, and performance assessment  
Build and refine high-fidelity models of vehicle dynamics, sensors, actuators, and control system behavior using MATLAB, Simulink, and related simulation tools  
Conduct 6-DOF simulation, Monte Carlo analysis, regression testing, and performance studies to validate system robustness across nominal and off-nominal conditions  
Support software and system integration across flight controls, navigation, avionics, and other vehicle subsystems  
Execute and analyze software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, and system integration testing campaigns  
Support flight test planning, real-time test execution, and post-flight data analysis to validate and improve control and estimation performance  
Collaborate closely with avionics, software, test, and vehicle engineering teams to define requirements, interfaces, and system architecture  
Drive technical trade studies for sensors, estimators, control logic, and autonomy-related subsystems  
Contribute to verification strategies, test coverage definition, and system-level performance validation  
Document technical work clearly through reports, test reviews, and design presentations  

Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, or a related technical field  
5+ years of professional experience in GNC, flight controls, autonomy, estimation, robotics, or closely related aerospace systems  
Strong fundamentals in dynamics, linear controls, stability analysis, and modeling and simulation  
Experience developing or integrating flight-critical algorithms for aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, UAVs, or other autonomous systems  
Proficiency in MATLAB, Simulink, Python, C++, or similar technical computing and software development tools  

Preferred Skills and Experience:

Experience with flight controls development for autonomous aircraft or other high-performance aerospace systems  
Experience with autonomous takeoff and landing system development, testing, or validation  
Experience with GNSS, INS/IMU, air data systems, and other aircraft navigation sensors  
Practical experience with Kalman filtering techniques, including EKF, UKF, or related estimation methods  
Experience with 6-DOF simulation, control law development, and flight dynamics modeling  
Experience with software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, Monte Carlo testing, and regression-based validation  
Experience supporting flight test, post-flight analysis, and control system tuning  
Ability to solve complex technical problems with a high degree of ownership in a fast-paced development environment  
Strong written and verbal communication skills  
Passion for building advanced aircraft and enabling a faster pace of flight development