Principal GNC Engineer: Autonomous Flight Architect

Mach Industries Inc.; Huntington Beach (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Mach Industries is seeking a Principal GNC Engineer to define, develop, and flight-prove the GNC architecture for autonomous aircraft and related defense platforms. You will own system-level technical decisions across guidance, navigation, flight controls, modeling and simulation, embedded implementation, and flight test.

This hands-on technical leadership role will solve the program’s hardest problems, establish engineering rigor, and guide multidisciplinary teams from early vehicle design

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field.
• 10+ years designing, implementing and testing GNC systems.
• Ownership of a GNC system through lifecycle stages.
• Deep knowledge of flight dynamics, stability and control.
• Proficiency with MATLAB/Simulink and C/C++.
• Experience with Monte Carlo analysis and SIL/HIL.
• Strong flight-test practices and telemetry analysis.
• Experience with Git and CI workflows.
• Ability to lead complex technical decisions and mentor.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end GNC architecture and technical roadmap across mission phases.
• Translate objectives into GNC requirements, interfaces, budgets, and criteria.
• Design and mature guidance algorithms, controllers, estimators, and fault handling.
• Ensure robust performance across the operating envelope with disturbances.
• Lead flight-dynamics modeling, Monte Carlo analysis, and model validation.
• Establish software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop workflows.
• Drive production implementation of flight-critical algorithms in embedded software.
• Define flight-readiness criteria and lead test planning and data analysis.
• Collaborate with aerodynamics, propulsion, avionics, and test teams.
• Mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and establish reusable methods.

Skills

Technical leadership

Cross-disciplinary communication

Mentoring engineers

System thinking

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a technical field

Master’s or PhD preferred

Tools

MATLAB/Simulink

C/C++

Git

CI workflows

SIL/HIL

PX4/ROS 2

RTOS or real-time OS

Job description

Mach Industries is seeking a Principal GNC Engineer to define, develop, and flight-prove the GNC architecture for autonomous aircraft and related defense platforms. You will own system-level technical decisions across guidance, navigation, flight controls, modeling and simulation, embedded implementation, and flight test.

This hands-on technical leadership role will solve the program’s hardest problems, establish engineering rigor, and guide multidisciplinary teams from early vehicle design