Senior GNC Engineer: Autonomous Flight Control Architect

Poseidon Aerospace; Berkeley (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Employee Health Benefit Plans

6% Retirement matching

Flexible PTO

Free lunches, snacks, and a stocked fr

AI tools and subscriptions

Job summary

Poseidon Aerospace seeks a Senior GNC Engineer to own the GNC architecture and decide how the autonomous cargo aircraft is controlled. You will influence state estimation, sensor/actuator failure handling, and envelope expansion, while leading a small team of engineers and connecting with avionics and flight software.

You will directly design control laws for takeoff, landing, and failure scenarios, and validate against flight data, with a focus on reliability for two-ton payload autonomous

Qualifications

• 5+ years designing guidance, navigation, or control systems for aircraft, spacecraft, or comparable vehicles.
• Owned the GNC design for a vehicle or major flight phase from requirements through flight.
• Algorithms you designed have flown on a real vehicle.
• Supported a flight test campaign, including flight clearance and post-flight model correlation.
• Led design reviews and set technical direction for other engineers.

Responsibilities

• Own the GNC architecture, including control law structure, navigation solution, guidance modes, and redundancy management.
• Design flight control laws for all phases of flight, including takeoff, landing, and failure cases.
• Design the navigation and state estimation solution, including sensor selection criteria with avionics.
• Define the control response to sensor, actuator, and engine failures, and to loss of link.
• Set stability margin and performance requirements and show that the design meets them across the envelope.
• Own the fidelity of the 6-DOF simulation and its validation against flight data.
• Define GNC requirements and interfaces with flight software, avionics, and flight sciences.
• Define the verification approach across simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and flight test.
• Lead GNC flight clearance for envelope expansion and support flight test on site.
• Lead system identification and model updates from flight data.
• Support system safety assessments and certification evidence for the flight control system.
• Lead design reviews and mentor other GNC engineers.

Skills

GNC design

Flight control systems

State estimation

Sensor/actuator failures

Flight test support

Technical leadership

DO-178C/DO-331 experience

Education

B.S. in aerospace engineering or related field

M.S./Ph.D. in controls/dynamics or related field

Tools

Simulation environments

Model-based development tools

Autocode tooling (DO-178C/DO-331)

Job description

Poseidon Aerospace seeks a Senior GNC Engineer to own the GNC architecture and decide how the autonomous cargo aircraft is controlled. You will influence state estimation, sensor/actuator failure handling, and envelope expansion, while leading a small team of engineers and connecting with avionics and flight software.

You will directly design control laws for takeoff, landing, and failure scenarios, and validate against flight data, with a focus on reliability for two-ton payload autonomous