Lead GNC Engineer – On-site Autonomous Space Navigation

Approach Venture; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, dental, and eye

Life and disability insurance

Paid parental leave

Three weeks of paid vacation

Job summary

Approach Venture in Denver, CO seeks a Senior GNC Engineer to lead navigation and state estimation software for autonomous spacecraft operations. You will own flight-critical navigation and state estimation across rendezvous, docking, and formation flight, interfacing with controls, perception, avionics, and embedded software teams.

The role requires hands-on design and validation of Kalman Filters, sensor fusion, and orbital mechanics knowledge, with heavy emphasis on robust estimation from

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline.
• 5+ years of professional experience developing guidance, navigation, or state estimation systems.
• Strong software development experience using modern C++ and Python.
• Experience designing and implementing Kalman Filters or similar sequential estimation techniques.
• Experience developing sensor fusion algorithms for autonomous systems.
• Strong understanding of orbital mechanics, rigid-body dynamics, coordinate transformations, and feedback control systems.
• Experience developing algorithms that have been validated through simulation, hardware testing, or operational deployment.
• Familiarity with software development best practices, version control, and collaborative engineering workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of spacecraft navigation and state estimation algorithms for autonomous flight operations.
• Design, implement, tune, and validate Extended Kalman Filters, Unscented Kalman Filters, and other probabilistic estimation techniques.
• Develop relative navigation algorithms supporting rendezvous, docking, proximity operations, and formation flight.
• Design onboard sensor fusion architectures integrating multiple navigation sensors into robust state estimates.
• Develop measurement models and estimation techniques for optical, inertial, and ranging sensors.
• Define navigation system accuracy requirements and allocate error budgets across sensing and estimation systems.
• Develop orbit determination, orbital propagation, and absolute navigation algorithms supporting spacecraft operations.
• Analyze navigation performance using simulation, hardware testing, and flight data.
• Support hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop testing campaigns.
• Develop analysis tools, visualization utilities, and validation software using C++ and Python.
• Investigate navigation anomalies and improve estimator robustness throughout system development and flight operations.
• Collaborate closely with controls, perception, avionics, embedded software, and systems engineering teams to integrate navigation capabilities into the overall flight system.
• Participate in design reviews, technical trade studies, and system architecture decisions.

Skills

C++

Python

Kalman Filters

Sensor fusion

Orbital mechanics

State estimation

Embedded software

Education

Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering or related field

Tools

Git

Job description

Approach Venture in Denver, CO seeks a Senior GNC Engineer to lead navigation and state estimation software for autonomous spacecraft operations. You will own flight-critical navigation and state estimation across rendezvous, docking, and formation flight, interfacing with controls, perception, avionics, and embedded software teams.

The role requires hands-on design and validation of Kalman Filters, sensor fusion, and orbital mechanics knowledge, with heavy emphasis on robust estimation from