Satellite GNC Engineer, Amazon Leo

Amazon Leo is building a constellation of thousands of low Earth orbit satellites. It will bring fast, reliable internet to customers beyond the reach of existing networks.

On the Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) team, you will design the algorithms, simulations and onboard autonomy that keep every satellite precisely pointed and stable. Your work lets the payload serve customers on the ground, and it keeps the fleet flying safely.

This is satellite GNC at constellation scale. The constellation is launching and growing today, so you will see your work go from concept to orbit, and then fly on many satellites.

In this role, you will:

• Take your GNC algorithms from concept to orbit, and stay with them through integration, test and on-orbit operations.
• Write the production C++ flight code for your own algorithms. The code that flies is the code you write.
• Solve hard problems in precise pointing, payload cueing and fleet autonomy.
• Work across design, simulation, test and flight operations, not a narrow slice of the lifecycle.

Export Control Requirement: Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Key job responsibilities

• Design and analyze algorithms for state estimation, attitude determination and control, precise pointing and payload cueing against demanding performance requirements.
• Implement these algorithms in production C++ flight software. Our GNC engineers own their algorithms all the way into flight, and partner with our embedded software engineers to integrate and test them.
• Write concepts of operations for each phase of a satellite"s life, from launch and orbit raising to service and deorbit, including failures and recovery. Balance what the payload needs against momentum, power, thermal and ground-contact limits.
• Develop momentum management strategies with reaction wheels and magnetic torquers. Help select, size and place the GNC sensors and actuators for future satellites, and design the algorithms that use them. These include star trackers, magnetometers, sun sensors, IMUs and GNSS receivers.
• Develop onboard autonomy, including Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR), so that the fleet operates safely at scale with minimal ground intervention.
• Build and validate satellite and constellation models and simulations at several levels of fidelity, including 6-DOF simulation and Monte Carlo analysis. Verify closed-loop performance in hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) tests.
• Support component environmental tests, functional and performance checkout, and subsystem and satellite integration in our labs.
• Analyze telemetry from the whole fleet. Build the metrics, dashboards and tools that track pointing performance and payload operations time as the constellation grows, and use them to improve the fleet.
• Operate the GNC system on orbit and take part in the team"s on-call rotation. Review fleet data, support maneuvers, and resolve anomalies when on-orbit behavior differs from the ground model.
• Review designs and code with the team, and document your algorithms, analyses and results clearly.

A day in the life

This role covers a wide range of problems across the spacecraft and the network. You will derive and prototype estimation and control algorithms, and then turn them into production flight code. You will prove them in 6-DOF and Monte Carlo simulation and in hardware-in-the-loop tests in the lab. You will support satellite integration. When a satellite does not behave as the ground model predicted, you will dig into fleet telemetry, find the cause and drive the fix. You will own each problem end to end, with the focus to go deep on it.

GNC is at the center of safe flight, so you will work across the whole program. The payload, power, thermal and operations teams all depend on GNC, and you will balance their needs against the pointing and momentum budgets. You will partner closely with avionics, flight software and embedded software engineers to make your algorithms run reliably on the spacecraft. You will help the mechanical teams shape the next generation of satellite hardware, from reaction wheels to star trackers. As satellites move from design through manufacturing into orbit, you will work with systems engineering and Assembly, Integration and Test.

The problems are hard: tight pointing requirements, a large constellation to keep flying safely, and the chance to invent capabilities that do not exist yet. Constant work with other teams makes this a place where you keep learning and growing.

About the team

You will join the Satellite Attitude Determination and Control team. We own GNC for our satellites end to end: algorithm design, flight software, lab integration, and flight operations of our own satellites on orbit. Our engineers bring deep experience from many satellite programs and other flight vehicles, with real strength in both our mission and the core GNC disciplines. We design, prototype, test, iterate and learn together. Because GNC is central to safe flight, we drive the concepts of operations and many of the system-level analyses on the program.

We also have a lot of freedom. We trust our engineers to choose their own tools and approaches for the problems they face, and to own the results. If you want the autonomy to solve hard problems your way, with a team of strong engineers, you will feel at home here.