Senior Autonomous Drones Engineer - GNC

present of AI; Paris; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

HyLight in Paris designs autonomous hydrogen-powered airships. The Senior GNC role focuses on modeling flight dynamics, developing control laws, and validating them in code for safe, regulatory-compliant flight testing.

You will work with embedded hardware, flight computers and real-world sensors to ensure robust autonomy. The candidate should bring 6+ years in GNC with drones/aerospace, strong Simulink, Python and C/C++ skills, and hands-on field debugging experience on an engineering team

Qualifications

• At least six years in guidance, navigation and control for drones, aerospace or automotive projects.
• Hands-on with Simulink, Python and C/C++, plus embedded hardware experience.
• Ability to debug sensors/actuators in the field and validate safety for regulators.

Skills

GNC experience

Python

C/C++

Simulink

Embedded systems

Flight testing

Sensor/actuator debugging

Tools

Simulink

Embedded hardware

Flight test equipment

Job description

Engineering · Paris, France · Full-time · Senior level

The role centers on building the guidance, navigation and control systems for a new kind of autonomous airship, from modeling its flight dynamics to writing and testing the control laws in code. A strong candidate brings at least six years of GNC work in drones, aerospace or automotive, plus hands‑on skill with Simulink, Python and C/C++ and embedded hardware. The job also asks for someone practical who can debug sensors and actuators in the field and help prove the systems are safe to regulators.

How it fits the AI era

AI does not replace the core of this work, since the control laws, safety strategies and flight testing still depend on engineering judgment and physical intuition. What changes is the volume of flight data, which AI tools can help analyze to spot patterns and speed up tuning and validation. The human side stays in the modeling, the risk decisions and the field debugging when something misbehaves.

How it builds AI experience

Working here means gaining experience in applying data analysis to real flight logs from hydrogen airships and in feeding those insights back into control design. The company also runs AI that turns LiDAR, imagery and methane data into defect detection, so there is room to learn how autonomy and perception connect to the GNC stack. Building this starts with strong fundamentals in dynamics and embedded code, then adding practice in extracting insight from flight data.

Worth showing

• Python and C/C++
• Embedded flight computers
• Flight test and debugging
• Flight data analysis

This is our own read, written from the employer's posting and the company's Spotlight. The employer's posting is the source of truth for the role.

About HyLight

Autonomous, hydrogen-powered airships for zero-emission aerial inspection of critical energy and transport grids.