GNC Engineer

Waypoint Human Capital; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 122,000 - 214,000; Full time

Job summary

Waypoint Human Capital is seeking two experienced Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineers to support an on-site missile and weapon systems program for a defense customer near Woodland Hills, CA. You will develop and assess guidance, navigation, control, estimation, and sensor-fusion solutions from early analysis through integration and test.

The role requires a strong background in dynamics, controls, state estimation, and MATLAB/Simulink, with hands-on algorithm development and

Qualifications

• 8+ years of GNC, estimation, controls, navigation, or flight dynamics experience.
• Bachelor's degree in a technical discipline (aerospace, mechanical, electrical, physics).
• Strong foundation in dynamics, control theory, state estimation, numerical methods, and linear algebra.
• Hands-on MATLAB/Simulink experience for algorithm development and validation.
• Experience with time-domain and frequency-domain analysis and technical documentation.
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility for government security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Develop and mature GNC algorithms for missile and weapon systems.
• Design and tune Kalman filter-based estimators (EKF/UKF as appropriate).
• Develop flight dynamics, navigation error models, autopilot, guidance laws.
• Use MATLAB/Simulink for trade studies, Monte Carlo analyses, and verification.
• Integrate algorithms with six-DOF and hardware-in-the-loop environments.
• Analyze system performance and support technical reviews.
• Lead GNC architecture decisions and coordinate across teams.

Skills

GNC experience

Controls theory

State estimation

Flight dynamics

Numerical methods

Education

Bachelor's degree (aerospace/ME/EE/physics)

Tools

MATLAB/Simulink

C/C++

Python

Job description

Position Title: Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineer
Position Type: Full-Time, On-Site
Location: Woodland Hills, CA
Clearance: U.S. Citizenship and eligibility to obtain a U.S. Government Security Clearance
Salary Range: $121,875.44 – $214,390.20 annually

Waypoint’s client is seeking two experienced Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineers to support an on-site missile and weapon systems program for a defense customer. The engineers will develop and assess guidance, navigation, control, estimation, and sensor-fusion solutions from early analysis through integration and test.

Responsibilities

• Develop, analyze, and mature guidance, navigation, control, estimation, and sensor-fusion algorithms for missile and weapon system applications.
• Design and tune Kalman filter-based estimators, including extended or unscented approaches where appropriate to the solution.
• Develop and evaluate flight dynamics, navigation error models, autopilot functions, guidance laws, and control-system performance.
• Use MATLAB and Simulink for trade studies, sensitivity analyses, Monte Carlo assessments, and requirements verification.
• Integrate algorithms with six-degree-of-freedom and hardware-in-the-loop environments.
• Analyze system performance, document recommendations, and support technical reviews.
• Establish GNC architecture, lead trades, mentor engineers, and coordinate across systems, software, algorithms, modeling, hardware, and test teams.

Required

• At least 8 years of relevant GNC, estimation, controls, navigation, or flight dynamics experience.
• Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, physics, or a closely related technical discipline.
• Strong foundation in dynamics, control theory, state estimation, numerical methods, and linear algebra.
• Hands-on experience developing and evaluating algorithms in MATLAB and/or Simulink.
• Experience analyzing time-domain and frequency-domain performance and communicating conclusions through technical documentation and reviews.
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain a U.S. government security clearance if required by the program; an active clearance is not required at hire.

Desired

• Direct missile, interceptor, guided weapon, flight control, or aerospace GNC experience.
• Experience with Kalman filtering, inertial navigation, GPS-aided navigation, sensor fusion, target-state estimation, or tracking.
• Experience with six-degree-of-freedom simulation, Monte Carlo analysis, flight envelopes, and performance requirements allocation.
• Working knowledge of C/C++, Python, embedded implementation, or automatic code-generation workflows.
• Experience integrating radar, electro-optical/infrared, inertial, GPS, or other sensor data into a navigation or guidance solution.
• Experience supporting software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, ground test, flight test, or post-test data analysis.