GNC Engineer - Foiling Electric Vessel Controls

Vessev; Auckland; On-site; NZD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

20 weeks parental leave for primary

Competitive salaries

Job summary

Vessev is hiring a GNC Engineer to design guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for our hydrofoiling electric vessels. You’ll own parts of the control law, collaborate with senior engineers, and help bring a new marine propulsion category to life.

Joining our Vessel Controls team, you’ll build state estimation, sensor fusion, and flight-like control loops, balancing performance with passenger comfort while turning ideas into deployable code in Python or MATLAB.

Qualifications

• A degree in engineering, aerospace, applied mathematics, or a similar field.
• 4+ years’ experience working on controls, robotics, or dynamical systems.
• Solid hands-on experience with Python or MATLAB for modelling and prototyping.
• Experience with 6DOF or other simulation environments.
• Concrete experience turning ideas into reality.
• Strong teamwork skills and the ability to work well across different engineering disciplines.
• A proactive, enthusiastic and self-motivated approach, with genuine openness to learning.
• The ability to take a flexible approach and adapt to change quickly.

Responsibilities

• State estimation and sensor fusion algorithms, combining IMU, GNSS, and height sensing into an accurate picture of vessel state.
• Handling noisy, real-world signals: wave-induced motion, spray, sensor dropouts, and the general messiness of a marine environment.
• Developing control laws for our full-scale vessels, taking ownership of specific problems while collaborating closely with senior engineers on the team.
• Contributing to decisions on what sensors will drive control, and why.
• Helping build the analysis tools and workflows the team uses to assess controller performance.
• Balancing performance against passenger comfort, and helping define what “good” actually feels like on the water.
• Developing the algorithms that decide where the vessel should go and how it should get there: ride height, speed, heading and turn behaviour.
• Owning the transitions that matter most to passengers: taking off onto the foils, coming back down, and coordinated turns that feel smooth rather than sharp.
• Shaping how guidance targets are set across different operating modes, from low-speed manoeuvring and docking through to sustained foiling flight.
• Extending and improving our 6DOF simulator to support the development of new vessels and systems.
• Building control system prototypes in Python or MATLAB to test and refine in the simulator and Hardware-In-The-Loop (HITL) system.
• Working closely with our Flight Software team to implement and validate the algorithms you develop.
• Developing a strong working understanding of how mechanical, electrical, structural and control systems fit together to form the bigger picture of a hydrofoiling vessel.

Skills

Control systems

Robotics

Python

MATLAB

Dynamical systems

Education

Engineering degree

Tools

Python

MATLAB

6DOF simulation

Job description

Vessev is hiring a GNC Engineer to design guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for our hydrofoiling electric vessels. You’ll own parts of the control law, collaborate with senior engineers, and help bring a new marine propulsion category to life.

Joining our Vessel Controls team, you’ll build state estimation, sensor fusion, and flight-like control loops, balancing performance with passenger comfort while turning ideas into deployable code in Python or MATLAB.