Founding GNC Engineer

Founding GNC Engineer – Own the guidance and autonomy stack for a new class of interceptor systems

Hawthorne, California | On-site

Opportunity Summary

Join a recently funded seed-stage defense technology startup developing a new generation of low-cost interceptor systems for rapidly evolving airborne threats. The company has already designed, built, and demonstrated working flight hardware with military users and is now expanding the core engineering team as it moves from successful early intercepts toward deployable systems. As the Founding GNC Engineer, you will take ownership of the vehicle’s guidance, navigation, and control architecture from its current flight-proven foundation through increasingly difficult targets, environments, and vehicle configurations. You will own the algorithms, simulation infrastructure, embedded implementation, and flight-test feedback loop while establishing the technical standards for GNC as the company grows.

About Us

We are a seed-stage defense technology company developing compact, highly maneuverable interceptor systems designed around significantly lower cost, faster iteration, and scalable manufacturing. The team is intentionally small and engineering-driven, with individual engineers owning major portions of the vehicle rather than narrow pieces of a larger program. The company has completed successful customer demonstrations, recently secured additional financing, and is now building out several founding-level technical functions.

Job Duties

Own the complete GNC stack across state estimation, guidance, flight control, control allocation, and vehicle autonomy

Advance existing flight-proven algorithms into a robust system capable of handling broader target sets and operating conditions

Develop and improve target tracking, state estimation, and multi-sensor fusion

Build algorithms that remain effective in cluttered, degraded, GPS-denied, and other challenging environments

Design and tune intercept guidance laws for highly dynamic engagements

Extend flight-control architecture across new vehicle configurations and increasingly demanding portions of the flight envelope

Develop control-allocation strategies for unconventional and highly maneuverable aircraft

Expand 6-DOF simulation, Monte Carlo testing, and hardware-in-the-loop environments for design validation and pre-flight qualification

Develop production-quality flight software in C/C for resource-constrained embedded hardware

Use Python and other analysis tools for simulation, modeling, test automation, and post-flight analysis

Define sensor, actuator, compute, and airframe requirements alongside electrical, mechanical, propulsion, and embedded engineering teams

Develop instrumentation and telemetry requirements needed to understand vehicle performance during flight

Support range operations, integration testing, and flight-test execution

Reconstruct flight performance and convert test results directly into improvements to algorithms and vehicle design

Balance intercept performance against compute, sensor, actuator, manufacturing, and vehicle cost constraints

Establish GNC development standards and technical architecture as the team expands

Qualifications

Hands-on experience developing GNC software that has operated on real physical hardware such as aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, drones, autonomous vehicles, marine systems, or robotics

Strong understanding of state estimation and sensor fusion

Experience with Kalman filtering, extended or unscented Kalman filters, or other nonlinear estimation techniques

Strong foundation in classical and modern control theory

Experience developing and implementing guidance algorithms for dynamic systems

Proficiency in C or C for production or embedded software development

Strong Python skills for modeling, simulation, analysis, and tooling

Experience developing simulation environments for dynamic systems

Ability to move between mathematical modeling, software implementation, hardware integration, and flight-test analysisStrong technical judgment and the ability to independently own major architecture decisions

Willingness to remain accountable for GNC performance through integration and flight testing

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Applied Mathematics, or a related technical discipline

Ability to work on-site in Hawthorne, California

Preferred Experience

GNC development for counter-UAS, air-defense, missile, interceptor, or other high-dynamic aerospace systems

Experience with highly maneuverable autonomous aircraft or UAS

Real-time embedded software development

Hardware-in-the-loop testing and flight-software qualification

Monte Carlo simulation and statistical performance analysis

GPS-denied navigation and degraded-navigation environments

Target tracking and intercept guidance

Experience integrating GNC with radar, RF, acoustic, optical, or other sensing systems

Previous technical ownership within a small startup or advanced R&D team

Experience taking a vehicle from prototype performance into a more repeatable and production-ready system

Why Join Us

Take founding-level ownership of the GNC architecture rather than contributing to a narrow portion of an established stack

Build on a vehicle platform that has already completed successful real-world demonstrations

Work directly across algorithms, software, embedded hardware, vehicle integration, and flight testing

Help establish the technical standards and engineering processes for an entire discipline

Join a small team where engineering decisions move quickly from simulation to hardware and flight

Opportunity to help build and eventually grow the GNC organization

Founding-stage equity

Performance-based bonuses for exceptional contributions

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Company-provided meals during working days and launch activities

Paid time off and company holidays

Compensation Details

$130,000 – $175,000

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