Lead Spacecraft Perception & Navigation Engineer

Approach Venture; Golden (CO); On-site; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Approach Venture in Golden, CO is seeking a Lead Perception & Navigation Engineer to own the perception and navigation architecture for autonomous proximity operations of a new generation of spacecraft. You will lead development of relative navigation, state estimation, sensor fusion, and perception systems from sensing to control, collaborating with avionics, embedded software, and flight hardware teams.

This hands-on leadership role covers algorithms, simulation, testing, and hardware

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in a technical field related to perception, navigation or autonomy.
• 4 years of professional experience in perception, navigation, state estimation, sensor fusion, or related algorithm development.
• Strong understanding of real-time state estimation and probabilistic filtering.
• Experience deploying algorithms onto physical robotic or aerospace systems.
• Ability to own a technically complex subsystem from requirements to testing and deployment.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and development of the spacecraft perception and navigation stack.
• Own relative navigation and state estimation for rendezvous and proximity operations.
• Develop real-time algorithms for relative position, velocity, attitude, pose, and motion estimation.
• Design multi-sensor fusion architectures using EKF/UKF and related estimation techniques.
• Define sensing requirements and characterize sensor suites for autonomous relative navigation.
• Build flight-ready navigation and perception software in C and Python.
• Integrate algorithms into onboard flight software and embedded environments.
• Validate performance through software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop testing.

Skills

C development

Python development

Real-time state estimation

Sensor fusion

Probabilistic filtering

Ownership & leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, computer science, physics, mathematics, or related field

Master’s degree or PhD in robotics, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, physics, or related discipline

Job description

Approach Venture in Golden, CO is seeking a Lead Perception & Navigation Engineer to own the perception and navigation architecture for autonomous proximity operations of a new generation of spacecraft. You will lead development of relative navigation, state estimation, sensor fusion, and perception systems from sensing to control, collaborating with avionics, embedded software, and flight hardware teams.

This hands-on leadership role covers algorithms, simulation, testing, and hardware