GNC Actuation Systems Engineer — Flight Controls

Castelion; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

4 weeks PTO

Health benefits

Holidays

Parental leave

Fitness stipend

EV charging

Catered meals

Job summary

Castelion is seeking a GNC Engineer focused on actuation systems to design and implement high‑fidelity control loops for flight actuators. You will model dynamics, perform system identification, and build SITL/HITL environments to validate hardware with embedded flight software.

You will collaborate across GNC, avionics, software, mechanical, and test teams to deliver flight‑ready actuators. A strong controls background and hands-on testing are essential for immediate impact in this fast-moving

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Strong fundamentals in feedback controls, dynamics, or electromechanical systems.
• Experience programming in Python, Rust, C/C++, Julia, or a similar technical computing language.
• Experience analyzing dynamic systems through coursework, research, internships, projects, or professional work.
• Ability to work effectively across software, electrical, mechanical, and controls disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and tune closed-loop control systems for flight vehicle actuators.
• Develop position, velocity, force, torque, and current control architectures as required by the actuator system.
• Model electromechanical actuator dynamics, including motors, transmissions, ball screws, control surfaces, sensors, structural loads, friction, backlash, saturation, and other nonlinear effects.
• Develop actuator performance requirements and support motor, gearing, sensor, and mechanical hardware sizing.
• Perform stability, bandwidth, robustness, disturbance rejection, and tracking performance analysis.
• Develop feedforward, filtering, compensation, anti-windup, command shaping, and other control features to improve actuator performance.
• Perform system identification and parameter estimation using component, bench, and integrated test data.
• Build actuator models for high-fidelity vehicle and 6-DOF simulations.
• Implement control algorithms in embedded flight software and support real-time execution constraints.
• Develop SITL and HITL test environments for actuator validation.
• Plan and execute hardware characterization and closed-loop actuator testing.
• Analyze test and flight data to validate models, identify performance limitations, and improve control designs.
• Work closely with GNC, avionics, embedded software, mechanical, electrical, and test engineers to deliver integrated flight-ready actuation systems.

Skills

Feedback controls

Dynamics

Electromechanical systems

Python

Rust

C/C++

Julia

Cross-discipline collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Aerospace/Mechanical/Electrical/Computer Engineering

Tools

Python

Rust

C/C++

Julia

Job description

Castelion is seeking a GNC Engineer focused on actuation systems to design and implement high‑fidelity control loops for flight actuators. You will model dynamics, perform system identification, and build SITL/HITL environments to validate hardware with embedded flight software.

You will collaborate across GNC, avionics, software, mechanical, and test teams to deliver flight‑ready actuators. A strong controls background and hands-on testing are essential for immediate impact in this fast-moving