Lead Spacecraft Flight Dynamics Engineer

Motive Workforce; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Motive Workforce is partnering with a Los Angeles-based spacecraft technology company seeking an experienced Spacecraft Flight Dynamics Engineer to join the flight program team. This role is highly hands-on and will support spacecraft from design and simulation through hardware integration, testing, and live on-orbit operations.

The ideal candidate brings strong experience across spacecraft flight dynamics, attitude determination and control, guidance and navigation, propulsion, simulation, and

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in spacecraft flight dynamics, ADS, and GNC.
• Hands-on role from design and simulation to hardware integration and live operations.
• Ability to mentor junior engineers and improve flight dynamics processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead integration, interface development, and performance requirements for ADCS and GNC hardware.
• Develop high-fidelity flight dynamics models for trajectory analysis and propellant budgeting.
• Tune control laws for spacecraft pointing, detumbling, momentum management, and station-keeping.
• Model and simulate with STK, Python, MATLAB, or similar platforms.
• Collaborate with Avionics, Flight Software, Systems Engineering, and AI&T teams for integration.
• Support hardware-in-the-loop testing and live flight operations.
• Transition designs from design/simulation to live operations and assist anomaly investigations.
• Maintain documentation on system design, simulations, tests, interfaces, and performance.

Skills

Flight dynamics

Attitude control

Guidance navigation

Propulsion

Modeling & simulation

Real-time ops

STK

Python

MATLAB

Team mentorship

Tools

STK

Python

MATLAB

Job description

Motive Workforce is partnering with a Los Angeles-based spacecraft technology company seeking an experienced Spacecraft Flight Dynamics Engineer to join the flight program team. This role is highly hands-on and will support spacecraft from design and simulation through hardware integration, testing, and live on-orbit operations.

The ideal candidate brings strong experience across spacecraft flight dynamics, attitude determination and control, guidance and navigation, propulsion, simulation, and