Senior Principal Engineer - Guidance Navigation Controls (Project Talon)

Northrop Grumman Corp.; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 142,000 - 213,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems in El Segundo, CA, seeks a Senior Principal Engineer – Guidance Navigation Controls to advance flight control algorithms for autonomous air vehicles. The role requires producing robust GNC software, simulations, and analysis across ground and flight tests.

You will work with MATLAB/Simulink, Stateflow, and autocoding tools, evaluating system performance and supporting design reviews; relocation may be available and a Secret clearance is required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in STEM with 8+ years of related experience or Master's with 6+ years or PhD with 4+ years.
• Experience with fixed-wing flight dynamics and linear control principles.
• Experience with Autopilot functions and nonlinear simulations.
• Proficiency in MATLAB/Simulink and Autocoder for models.

Responsibilities

• Develop and validate flight control algorithms for GPS-guided autonomous aircraft.
• Design, implement, verify, and test GNC software and simulations.
• Create models and run hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop tests.
• Analyze flight test data and contribute to design reviews (PDR, CDR).

Skills

C/C++ programming

Autonomy concepts

Python programming

Education

Bachelor's degree in STEM

Master’s degree in STEM

PhD in STEM

Tools

MATLAB

Simulink

Simulink Stateflow

Lua scripting

Job description

Relocation assistance may be available.

Clearance required: Yes

Clearance type: Secret

Travel: Yes, 25% of the time.

Description

Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems has an opening for a Senior Principal Engineer – Guidance Navigation Controls to join our team of qualified individuals supporting Project Talon within our South Bay Vehicle Engineering organization. This position is located at El Segundo, CA.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Support research and development of flight control algorithms for manned and unmanned air vehicles.
• Design, develop, implement, verify, and test algorithms, software, and simulation tools to perform guidance, navigation and control (GNC) of autonomous unmanned aircraft.
• Develop control laws to meet air vehicle performance, flying qualities and stability margin requirements, both on ground and in flight.
• Design outer and inner loop control laws, and associated logic and autonomy functions.
• Develop air vehicle system linear and non-linear dynamic simulation models and integrate models into software and hardware-in-the-loop simulation environments.
• Perform performance and flying qualities analysis.
• Support non-linear simulation and hardware-in-the-loop lab testing.
• Support flight test activities and analyze air vehicle flight test data.
• Develop analysis to support design reviews at different stages in a development program, such as PDR, CDR, etc.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) discipline with 8 years of related experience; or a Master’s degree in a relevant STEM discipline with 6 years of related experience; or a PhD in a relevant STEM discipline with 4 years of related experience.
• Experience with the following:
  • Fixed-wing aircraft flight dynamics.
  • Using linear control principles and tools to design feedback control systems.
  • Analyzing non-linear simulations of aircraft closed-loop dynamics.
  • Autopilot functions.
  • Outer/inner loop control law performance requirements.
  • Using MATLAB to create, process, analyze, and visually represent data.
  • Using Simulink to model dynamic systems.
  • Using Simulink Stateflow Modeling.
  • Autocoding Simulink models.
  • Designing autopilot functions.
  • Logic, modes, and states for autonomous aircraft.
  • C/C++ and Python programming.
• Current, active in-scope US Government Secret security clearance or higher, with the ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing control laws for fixed wing aircraft and performing handling qualities analysis.
• Working knowledge of MIL-STD-1797 flying qualities requirements.
• Experience with autonomy algorithms (Autonomous Taxi/ Take Off and Landing, etc.) for driving control laws.
• Experience with Lua Script programming.
• Working knowledge of SAE-94910 performance requirements.

Salary and Benefits

Primary Level Salary Range: $142,200.00 - $213,400.00.

• Eligible for overtime, shift differential, and discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.
• Annual bonuses designed to reward individual contributions and share in company results.
• Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives.
• Benefits include health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, company paid holidays, and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business.

Equal Opportunity and EEO Statement

Northrop Grumman is an Equal Opportunity Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. For our complete EEO and pay transparency statement, visit http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO. U.S. Citizenship is required for all positions with a government clearance and certain other restricted positions.