GNC Navigation Engineer II — Real-Time Estimation & Sensor Fusion

Pivotal; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 139,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, Vision

401k plan

Onsite HQ Palo Alto

Job summary

Pivotal is hiring a GNC Engineer II focused on navigation to design, implement, and verify real-time state estimation and sensor fusion for eVTOL platforms. You’ll work across the full development lifecycle, from MATLAB/Simulink modeling to embedded hardware deployment and flight-test data analysis.

The ideal candidate has strong estimation theory background, hands-on experience with GNSS/INS integration, and a track record in navigation for aerospace or UAV systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
• 2+ years of industry experience in GNC, navigation, or state estimation, or Master’s/PhD with related research.
• Strong foundation in estimation theory including Kalman filtering and complementary filtering.
• Hands-on experience with real sensor data (IMU, GNSS, magnetometer, barometer).
• Proficiency in MATLAB and Simulink for algorithm development and simulation.
• Proficiency in Python or MATLAB for data analysis.
• Experience in C or C++ for application-level code.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and tune state estimation algorithms (Kalman filters, complementary filters).
• Develop sensor fusion architectures (IMU, GNSS, magnetometer, barometer, radar/LiDAR).
• Create navigation models and verify via MATLAB/Simulink and hardware-in-the-loop tests.
• Plan and analyze flight tests, tune filters based on data, document results.

Skills

Estimation theory

Kalman filtering

MATLAB/Simulink

Python

C/C++

Data analysis

Education

Bachelor’s in Aerospace Eng / Mech / EE

Master’s or PhD preferred

Tools

MATLAB

Simulink

Git

HIL testing

Job description

Pivotal is hiring a GNC Engineer II focused on navigation to design, implement, and verify real-time state estimation and sensor fusion for eVTOL platforms. You’ll work across the full development lifecycle, from MATLAB/Simulink modeling to embedded hardware deployment and flight-test data analysis.

The ideal candidate has strong estimation theory background, hands-on experience with GNSS/INS integration, and a track record in navigation for aerospace or UAV systems.