Senior UAS GNC Engineer – AI-Driven Edge Flight Control

Sara-Inc; Colorado Springs (CO); On-site; USD 110,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

Discretionary bonuses

401(k) match/profit sharing

ESOP

Job summary

Scientific Applications & Research Associates, Inc. (SARA) in Colorado Springs invites an experienced UAS/GNC Engineer to lead the development of unmanned navigation and control technologies.

You will integrate flight controllers, optimize embedded software, and deploy AI models on embedded platforms, collaborating across hardware, software, and AI teams. The role focuses on flight controller integration, autonomous navigation, and edge AI processing, with opportunities to work on DoD/DoE

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field is required.
• 5–7 years in flight controller integration and UAV software development.
• Experience with NVIDIA Jetson, DeepStream, and CUDA.
• Knowledge of AI-driven perception, SLAM, and real-time processing on Jetson.
• Proficiency in PX4, ArduPilot, MAVLink, ROS, C++, and Python.
• Experience with PID tuning, sensor calibration, and autonomous navigation.
• Strong understanding of wireless comms and telemetry links.

Responsibilities

• Configure and integrate flight controllers (PX4, ArduPilot) with UAVs such as CUBE.
• Perform firmware flashing, PID tuning, and sensor integration (GPS, IMU, LiDAR).
• Develop embedded software using C++, Python, ROS; enable Jetson AI systems.
• Implement CV and AI-based perception for real-time tracking and SLAM.
• Optimize CUDA for neural inference on Jetson for edge AI.
• Establish reliable networking and telemetry (MAVLink over Wi‑Fi/5G).
• Collaborate on mission planning and autonomous navigation using QGroundControl.
• Support remote control and field operation monitoring of UAVs.
• Lead a team focused on unmanned navigation and control tech.

Skills

Flight controller integration

UAV software development

NVIDIA Jetson

CUDA programming

PX4

ArduPilot

MAVLink

ROS

C++

Python

SLAM

OpenCV

TensorFlow

PyTorch

DeepStream

QGroundControl

Mission Planner

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field

Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field

Tools

Jetson platform

Linux (Ubuntu)

Job description

Scientific Applications & Research Associates, Inc. (SARA) in Colorado Springs invites an experienced UAS/GNC Engineer to lead the development of unmanned navigation and control technologies.

You will integrate flight controllers, optimize embedded software, and deploy AI models on embedded platforms, collaborating across hardware, software, and AI teams. The role focuses on flight controller integration, autonomous navigation, and edge AI processing, with opportunities to work on DoD/DoE