Senior Flight Controls Engineer

Ribbit Ltd; Burlington; Hybrid; CAD 154,000 - 168,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

3 weeks vacation

Health and wellness plans

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Ribbit Ltd in Ontario is seeking a Senior Flight Controls Engineer to lead development of control laws for autonomous fixed-wing aircraft. You will model and tune control algorithms, write production-ready C++ code, and participate in design reviews with navigation, state estimation, hardware, and flight-test teams.

You will work hands-on to design and validate control laws in simulations and flight tests, mentor engineers, and plan campaigns to improve performance and safety in collaboration

Qualifications

• Degree in aerospace, mechanical, or electrical engineering or related field.
• Hands-on experience designing control laws for real aircraft, validated in flight tests.
• Proficiency with MATLAB/Simulink and Python for modelling and analysis; C++ for real-time systems.
• Strong flight dynamics foundation: equations of motion, aerodynamics, trim and linearisation.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of flight control for autonomous fixed-wing aircraft; shape architecture and roadmap; lead design reviews.
• Own aircraft modelling behind the control system, including trim, operating-point models, and propulsion models.
• Write production C++ and review the toughest changes; stay hands-on.
• Represent control in design reviews with navigation, state estimation, hardware, and flight-test teams; mentor engineers.
• Plan and fly test campaigns with flight-test and safety pilots; tune control laws and turn feedback into improvements.

Skills

Flight control design

C++ production code

Matlab/Simulink

Python

Flight dynamics

System identification

Model-based control

Safety-critical software

Education

University degree in aerospace/mechanical/electrical engineering

Tools

MATLAB

Simulink

Python

C++

X-Plane

JSBSim

FlightGear

Job description

Thank you for exploring opportunities at Ribbit! We look forward to speaking with you.

Note: the Careers page is under maintenance; actual details and interview process may differ slightly

Note: We read everything that comes our way. Let your outstanding résumé (cover letter and design portfolio encouraged but optional) do the talking. For important questions or comments, contact us at [e-mail].

Company

Founded in 2020, Ribbit builds and operates autonomous airplanes. We develop technology that enables uncrewed gate-to-gate operations, having completed hundreds of autonomous flight hours on different aircraft, flown 10K+ hours in simulation, and secured flight authorities for remotely and optionally piloted flight. From defending sovereignty to delivering food and medical supplies, we are a trusted partner that businesses and governments rely on to test, operate, and deploy affordable autonomous aircraft. You can check out our videos here.

We believe that technology should be developed for and with the customer. In 2023, we signed our first federal contract with the Government of Canada, during which we performed Canada’s first autonomous gate-to-gate flight between two airports. Since then, we have won several additional contracts, including contracts with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Department of National Defence (DND) spanning platform, mission, and collaborative autonomy. We pride ourselves on knowing the customer better than themselves, serving them better than anyone else, and ensuring they succeed in a world with everyone else.

This year alone, we performed the world's first demonstration of collaborative teaming between an autonomous airplane and an autonomous helicopter. We also deployed Canada's first optionally piloted aircraft with a military callsign. We are now building novel autonomous aircraft for DND and Canada's allies, aligning our immediate defence clients with a backlog of interest across northern wholesalers, public safety agencies, freight forwarders, and humanitarian organizations. Autonomy is reshaping the way we move, understand, and protect the world.

Our team has years of experience with piloting, commercial drone operations, and autonomous mobile robotics—we're concentrating the world's best software, robotics, and aeronautical expertise to pursue our mission of making air transportation accessible to everyone. If you’re up for the challenge, we want to hear from you.

Position Overview

As a Senior Flight Controls Engineer, you will collaborate with peers to:

• Lead development of flight control for autonomous fixed-wing aircraft. You will shape its architecture and roadmap, lead design reviews, and hold the bar on code quality
• Own the aircraft modelling behind the control system, including trim and operating-point models, actuator and propulsion models, and the simulations used to design and verify control laws
• Stay hands-on: design and tune control laws yourself, write production C++, and review the hardest changes
• Represent control in design reviews with the navigation, state estimation, hardware, and flight-test teams, and mentor the engineers who join the team
• Work with flight-test engineers and safety pilots to plan and fly test campaigns, tune control laws during and after flights, and turn pilot feedback into improvements

Your key objectives will include:

• Building and maintaining high-fidelity models of real aircraft from first principles (6-DOF equations of motion, aerodynamic coefficients, mass and inertia, propulsion and actuator dynamics), refined by system identification from flight data
• Trimming and linearising the aircraft across its envelope, and using the results to design, analyze, and schedule control laws (e.g. stability margins, robustness to model uncertainty)
• Designing and tuning control laws for automatic takeoff and landing: ground roll, rotation, crosswind technique, glide-path tracking, flare, touchdown, rollout, and go-around
• Designing energy management and lateral path following (e.g. TECS, L1 or similar nonlinear guidance) that hold up in wind and turbulence
• Implementing envelope protection and failure handling (e.g. stall, bank, load factor, and actuator limits), and safe handover of control to and from the safety pilot
• Taking control laws from design and analysis to production C++ that meets safety-critical standards, verified in closed-loop simulation (SIL/HIL) and flight test

Other Details:

• No. of Positions: 1
• Duration: Permanent Full-Time, starting December 2026
• Base Compensation: 153920 to 168480
• This is a hybrid role involving remote work and on-site presence to support field tests—you must be in the Greater Toronto Area or willing to relocate
• Competitive and comprehensive compensation (e.g. 3 weeks of vacation upon joining, comprehensive health and wellness plans)
• You must be eligible to hold a Government of Canada security clearance at the Reliability or Secret level, and pass security assessment for the Controlled Goods Program

Qualifications

As the ideal candidate, you meet the following requirements:

• A university degree in aerospace, mechanical, or electrical engineering, or a related field
• Hands-on experience designing control laws that have flown on real aircraft, including tuning and validating them in flight test
• MATLAB/Simulink and/or Python for modelling, analysis, and system identification, and C++ for implementing control laws on real-time systems
• A strong foundation in flight dynamics: equations of motion, aerodynamic modelling, stability derivatives, trim, and linearisation
• Experience identifying aircraft models from flight or test data (e.g. frequency-domain, output-error, and equation-error methods)
• Experience designing and analyzing aircraft control, both classical (cascaded loops, gain scheduling, anti-windup) and model-based (e.g. LQR, NDI/INDI, MPC)
• Experience with the takeoff and landing phases, including automatic landing, flare laws, and ground dynamics
• Experience with flight simulators (e.g. X-Plane, JSBSim, FlightGear, Simulink 6-DOF models)

Preferred and bonus qualifications include experience with:

• Developing and/or flight-testing autonomous aircraft or drones in a professional setting
• Modelling fixed-wing general aviation aircraft, including propeller and piston-engine propulsion
• A pilot licence, or experience as a flight-test engineer
• Wind, gust, and turbulence models (e.g. Dryden, von Karman, wind shear)
• Autoland, or certifying flight-control software (e.g. DO-178C, DO-331)
• Code generation from models (e.g. MATLAB Coder, Embedded Coder) and safety-critical coding standards (e.g. MISRA C++)

You also possess the soft skills to work in a high-stakes, tight-knit company, such as:

• Openness to give and receive feedback
• Adaptability when priorities move
• Self-awareness about your own strengths and gaps
• Taking initiative with minimal guidance