Principal Navigation Engineer

Edge Group; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 300,000 - 540,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Family visa

Annual flight tickets

Medical insurance

Education allowances

Job summary

EDGE Group is seeking a senior Guidance & Control engineer to lead control-law design and verification for autonomous defence systems based in Abu Dhabi. You will define requirements, architect control solutions, and ensure robust performance across operating envelopes.

You will mentor engineers, support SIL/PIL/HIL testing, and collaborate with global teams to translate concepts into deployable flight-control software and validated hardware-in-the-loop tests.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical, Electrical, Mechanical, Control, Robotics, or closely related discipline.
• Master’s degree or PhD in Flight Control, Guidance, Control Systems, or Autonomous Systems preferred.
• Typically, 10+ years of relevant aerospace or safety-critical control-system experience.
• Professional proficiency in written and spoken English.
• Demonstrated ability to lead significant Guidance & Control work packages with limited supervision.

Responsibilities

• Derive Guidance & Control requirements from aircraft, mission, safety and flying quality needs.
• Define functional requirements for control laws, guidance, autopilot, and allocation.
• Develop control-law architectures, mode structures and interfaces.
• Define required inputs/outputs for state, sensors, navigation, actuators, and configuration.
• Design inner-loop stabilization and outer-loop command functions.
• Develop longitudinal, lateral-directional, and coupled-axis control laws.
• Develop gain schedules and scheduling-variable logic across operating envelope.
• Develop envelope protection, command limiting, and degraded-mode functions.
• Design guidance algorithms for mission phases and feasibility checks.
• Ensure guidance commands are feasible within vehicle and control limits.
• Develop control-allocation and effector-management algorithms.
• Develop trim, linear and nonlinear models, plus frequency-response analysis.
• Perform modal, eigenvalue, time-domain and frequency-domain analyses.
• Establish gain, phase, delay, and robustness margins.
• Assess actuator activity, sensor-noise transmission, and disturbance rejection.
• Define verification cases, evidence, and acceptance criteria.
• Support SIL, PIL, HIL, and flight testing; compare models to production.
• Monitor timing, numerical precision, and interface behavior.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to peer reviews.

Skills

Guidance & Control

Leadership

Aerospace Engineering

English Proficiency

Systems Safety

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace or related field

Master’s or PhD in Flight Control / Autonomous Systems

Job description

At EDGE bold ideas are engineered into technologies that protect, improve and save lives.

Headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, EDGE is a leading advanced technology group working at the forefront of defence and emerging technologies. Spanning more than 35 specialised companies and multiple centres of excellence, we are purpose-built to move fast. Free from heavy legacy processes, we give our people the autonomy, accountability, and agility to bring breakthrough technologies from concept to reality.

Based in Abu Dhabi, a globally connected hub at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, EDGE is home to a truly multicultural community where bold ideas thrive, and the future is shaped.

Together, we are shaping the future.

ABOUT THE ROLE

ADASI is the regional leader in autonomous systems and services, dedicated to offering holistic solutions – from the development and production of unmanned systems to joint mission analysis and careful equipment acquisition. ADASI manufactures, operates and maintains next-generation autonomous solutions for air, land and sea – capable of performing in a diverse range of demanding environments. Leveraging advanced technologies to comply with the tactical demands of the future, ADASI aims to be a world leader in building the next generation of autonomous capabilities.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Requirements & Architecture

• Derive Guidance & Control requirements from aircraft, mission, safety, operational, and flying-quality requirements.
• Define functional and performance requirements for control laws, guidance, autopilot, and control allocation.
• Develop control-law architectures, mode structures, command hierarchies, and signal interfaces.
• Define required state, sensor, navigation, actuator, propulsion, and configuration inputs and outputs.

Control-Law Design

• Design inner-loop stabilization and outer-loop command functions.
• Develop longitudinal, lateral-directional, and coupled-axis control laws.
• Develop gain schedules and scheduling-variable logic across the operating envelope.
• Develop command shaping, reference models, feedforward, feedback, trim, and disturbance-rejection functions.
• Develop envelope protection, command limiting, reconfiguration, and degraded-mode functions.

Guidance & Control Allocation

• Design guidance algorithms for applicable mission phases.
• Ensure guidance commands are dynamically feasible and compatible with vehicle and control limits.
• Develop control-allocation and effector-management algorithms.

Modeling & Analysis

• Develop trim, linear, control-oriented, uncertainty, and frequency-response models.
• Perform modal, eigenvalue, time-domain, frequency-domain, and nonlinear analyses.
• Establish appropriate gain, phase, delay, disk, multiloop, and robustness margins.
• Assess actuator activity, sensor-noise transmission, disturbance rejection, structural-mode interaction, and system nonlinearities.

Verification & Validation

• Define verification cases, acceptance criteria, coverage, and evidence.
• Conduct linear, nonlinear, Monte Carlo, worst-case, failure-case, and sensitivity analyses.
• Support SIL, PIL, HIL, pilot-in-the-loop, ground, and flight testing.
• Compare reference models with production-software implementation.
• Assess timing, numerical precision, execution order, initialization, and interface behavior.

Troubleshooting & Flight Test

• Investigate oscillations, instability, saturation, trajectory errors, mode-transition issues, and simulation/test discrepancies.
• Support ground and flight-test planning, including test conditions, maneuvers, safety limits, excitation design, and success criteria.
• Monitor flight-test behavior and correlate predictions with ground- and flight-test evidence.

Documentation & Reviews

• Produce control-law design descriptions, guidance reports, robustness assessments, verification reports, release notes, and limitation statements.
• Support AoA, SRR, SFR, PDR, CDR, TRR, flight-readiness, qualification, FCA, PCA, MRR, and PRR activities.
• Maintain control-law build, release, and configuration records.
• Mentor engineers and conduct technical peer reviews.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical, Electrical, Mechanical, Control, Robotics, Applied Mathematics, or a closely related discipline.
• Master’s degree or PhD in Flight Control, Guidance, Control Systems, Aerospace Engineering, Autonomous Systems, Robotics, or a related field is preferred.
• Typically, 10+ years of relevant aerospace or comparable safety-critical control-system experience.
• Professional proficiency in written and spoken English.
• Demonstrated ability to lead significant Guidance & Control work packages with limited supervision.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Master’s degree or PhD in Flight Control, Guidance, Control Systems, Aerospace Engineering, Autonomous Systems, Robotics, or a related field.

WHY CHOOSE EDGE

Launched in November 2019, the UAE's EDGE is one of the world's leading advanced technology groups, established to develop agile, bold and disruptive solutions for defence and beyond, and to be a catalyst for change and transformation. It is dedicated to bringing breakthrough innovations, products, and services to market with greater speed and efficiency, to position the UAE as a leading global hub for future industries, and to creating clear paths within the sector for the next generation of highly skilled talent to thrive.

At EDGE, the real investment goes beyond compensation. Through our dedicated learning academy and digital learning platforms, employees have access to extensive opportunities to develop new skills, deepen their expertise, and advance their careers. Combined with the freedom to innovate, strong career support, and the opportunity to collaborate with world-class talent from across the globe, EDGE is a place where you can continue to grow, keep learning, and turn ambitious ideas into meaningful outcomes.

Working at EDGE also comes with a package that genuinely reflects how much we value our people. Salaries are highly competitive and tax-free and, depending on your role and seniority, benefits can include family visas, annual flight tickets, medical insurance for you and your dependents, and education allowances for your children.

CANDIDATE PRIVACY & EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT

If you feel your skills, experience and potential are a strong match for a role, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every requirement. We are genuinely interested in what you can bring to EDGE.

Any information you share as part of your EDGE candidate profile or job application will be handled in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy regulations.

EDGE is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and high-performing workforce. We believe every individual deserves to be treated with fairness, respect and dignity, and our employment decisions reflect that. We do not discriminate based on race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, marital status, age, disability, pregnancy or parental status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

As a global organisation, effective collaboration across international teams is central to how we work, so English proficiency is required for all roles unless otherwise stated in the job posting.