Lead, GPS-Denied Navigation & State Estimation

Neros; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 192,000 - 268,000; Full time

Job summary

Neros is a defense technology company building America’s drone industrial base. We design and manufacture unmanned systems tested in combat, iterated rapidly, and produced at scale for warfighters.

The State Estimation and Navigation Lead heads a small team responsible for onboard vehicle state estimation, target state, and uncertainty, while remaining hands-on in the estimator and guiding multiple platforms from prototype to fielded capability.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience in state estimation, navigation, sensor fusion, or GNC for robotics, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, or defense systems, including experience leading engineers as a manager or technical lead
• Demonstrated ownership of a state estimation or navigation system from architecture through deployment on production hardware
• Deep expertise in estimation theory and practical application (EKF/UKF, filters, factor graphs) with observability reasoning
• Hands-on experience fusing IMU, camera, GNSS, and range or altimetry sensing with calibration and time sync

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap for onboard state estimation and navigation and the interface to guidance and control
• Architect, implement, and field GPS denied and GPS degraded navigation to a bounded, measured accuracy specification
• Lead development of visual inertial and terrain relative navigation from prototype to fielded capability
• Define and enforce standard for characterizing estimation uncertainty and reporting autonomy reliability
• Hire, manage, and mentor state estimation and navigation engineers and review designs/code
• Partner with perception, guidance and control, platform software, and hardware teams on sensing, compute, latency, and calibration requirements

Skills

State estimation

Navigation

Sensor fusion

GNC

C++

Python

Embedded computing

Validation

Linear algebra

Probability

Numerical optimization

Leadership

Tools

PX4

ArduPilot

Betaflight

Job description

Neros is a defense technology company building America’s drone industrial base. We design and manufacture unmanned systems tested in combat, iterated rapidly, and produced at scale for warfighters.

The State Estimation and Navigation Lead heads a small team responsible for onboard vehicle state estimation, target state, and uncertainty, while remaining hands-on in the estimator and guiding multiple platforms from prototype to fielded capability.