Lead GNC Engineer - Own the guidance, navigation, and control stack for a next-generation interceptor
El Segundo, California | On-site
Opportunity Summary
This role owns the complete guidance, navigation, and control stack, including the algorithms, simulation, and flight software that put the interceptor on target. You will make the foundational architecture calls across guidance laws, estimation approach, and actuation strategy, and you will set the controllability requirements that shape the vehicle itself.
Working directly with the founders and with seeker, propulsion, mechanical, and avionics engineers, you will carry GNC from simulation through hardware-in-the-loop testing to live intercepts while building and leading the GNC team.
About Us
We are a seed-stage, venture-backed defense technology company building affordable, modular interceptors for air and missile defense, with surface-launched and space-based platforms in development. The team has already demonstrated autonomous intercepts and is moving quickly from prototype hardware into flight testing from our South Bay facility. We are a small group of engineers and operators who design, build, and test in-house, with a clear path toward scaled production for government customers.
Job Duties
- Hire, mentor, and grow the GNC team, setting priorities and reviewing designs and code
- Own the GNC architecture and roadmap, and communicate tradeoffs clearly to the founders and partner teams
- Set standards for simulation, verification, flight software quality, and analysis documentation
- Develop midcourse and terminal homing guidance for fast, nonlinear engagements using proportional navigation variants or optimal control
- Build intercept prediction algorithms from seeker tracks and onboard state estimates
- Lead the actuation architecture trade across aerodynamic surfaces, thrust vectoring, and divert thrusters
- Design and tune robust autopilots for high-G, high-rate maneuvering, modeling actuator bandwidth, latency, saturation, and uncertainty
- Own the navigation filter and target state estimator (EKF or UKF), fusing seeker data with IMU, GPS, and onboard timing
- Define the seeker-to-guidance interface and keep estimation robust to noise, latency, jitter, and thermal effects
- Build and maintain high-fidelity 6DOF simulations with supersonic aerodynamics, propulsion events, actuator dynamics, and seeker models
- Run Monte Carlo and worst-case analyses that drive vehicle-level design decisions
- Deliver hard real-time GNC flight software with avionics and embedded engineers
- Lead hardware-in-the-loop testing with real sensors and scene generators, and own GNC through ground and flight test
- Set controllability requirements for the airframe, control surfaces, and propulsion, and align with propulsion on control authority and impulse timing
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in aerospace, mechanical, or electrical engineering, robotics, or a related field (master's or PhD preferred)
- 5+ years of GNC experience, including algorithms that have flown on real hardware
- Experience leading engineers or owning a major GNC subsystem from design through flight test
- Deep grounding in classical and modern control theory, guidance, state estimation, and nonlinear dynamics
- Experience building 6DOF flight simulations in MATLAB, Simulink, Python, or C++
- Hands-on controller tuning for missiles, rockets, UAVs, or other autonomous flight vehicles
- Fluency with coordinate frames, quaternions, and navigation transformations
- U.S. Person status required (ITAR) and ability to obtain a U.S. security clearance
Preferred Experience
- Missile guidance, interceptor, or hypersonic vehicle experience
- Optimal control methods such as MPC, LQR variants, or differential games
- Radar seeker integration or seeker-in-the-loop guidance
- Embedded real-time systems, RTOS, or high-rate control loops
- Flight qualification or MIL-STD environmental testing
- Prior early-stage startup experience
Why Join Us
- Define the GNC architecture from the ground up and see it fly
- Build and lead the GNC team
- Shape the vehicle design through controllability requirements
- Direct partnership with the founders
- Early equity in a seed-stage company with a rapidly growing team
- Mission with direct national security impact
Compensation Details
$180,000 - $240,000 + equity