Guidance Navigation and Controls (GNC) Engineer III - Contract

Job Description

Job Description

ASI is expanding its teams to support its current ramp-up across development work, customer projects, and product deployments. This is a full-time W-2 contract position. The selected candidate will interview with ASI and work as an integrated member of the ASI team. W-2 employment, payroll, and benefits will be administered through one of ASI's staffing partners. Development phases of this nature typically span up to project completion (typically 2-4 years), though scope and duration are driven by business needs.

JOB SUMMARY

The Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer III develops, integrates, and validates algorithms that enable ASI's autonomous agricultural equipment to navigate fields, follow planned routes, maintain stable vehicle control, and complete assigned operations safely and accurately. This role works with vehicle dynamics, localization, state estimation, trajectory planning, path tracking, and feedback-control systems to support reliable autonomous operation in agricultural environments.

As a Level III engineer within ASI's five-level engineering structure, this position independently contributes to moderately complex GNC features and subsystem improvements while receiving guidance on broader architectural and system-level decisions. The role collaborates with perception, embedded software, systems, test, and field operations teams to improve autonomous equipment performance across changing terrain, vegetation, field conditions, weather, payloads, and agricultural workflows.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develop, implement, integrate, and validate guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for autonomous agricultural equipment
• Contribute to vehicle motion-control capabilities involving steering, propulsion, braking, speed control, path tracking, and trajectory following
• Develop and tune feedback-control algorithms to improve vehicle stability, accuracy, responsiveness, and operational performance
• Support navigation capabilities that allow autonomous equipment to move safely and efficiently through fields, headlands, access roads, and defined work areas
• Develop and improve localization and state-estimation solutions using GPS/GNSS, RTK positioning, inertial sensors, encoders, odometry, and vehicle feedback
• Contribute to trajectory-generation, route-planning, and path-planning solutions for agricultural operations
• Support capabilities involving field coverage, row following, headland turns, pass planning, overlap management, and work-area completion
• Support coordination between vehicle motion, attached implements, perception outputs, and task-planning software
• Own defined GNC features and moderately complex assignments from development through integration, testing, and field validation
• Develop and refine vehicle-dynamics and system-behavior models to support controller design, simulation, and performance analysis
• Tune control parameters on physical equipment across varying terrain, speed, payload, soil, traction, and operating conditions
• Evaluate GNC performance using simulation, recorded-data replay, software-in-the-loop testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and full-vehicle field testing
• Develop measurable performance criteria for assigned features, including path accuracy, tracking error, localization accuracy, stability, response time, and task completion
• Analyze vehicle logs and field data to identify control limitations, localization errors, unstable behavior, and operational edge cases
• Develop tools and scripts for simulation, data processing, visualization, automated testing, controller tuning, and performance analysis
• Troubleshoot issues involving vehicle control, localization, sensor timing, coordinate transformations, communication interfaces, and system integration
• Collaborate with perception engineers to ensure terrain, obstacle, vegetation, and boundary information supports safe navigation and control decisions
• Work with embedded software engineers to integrate GNC algorithms into real-time vehicle-control and computing systems
• Partner with test engineers and field testers to develop procedures, reproduce issues, and validate corrective actions
• Participate in design reviews, code reviews, sprint planning, and technical investigations
• Document algorithms, mathematical models, software interfaces, assumptions, test results, technical decisions, and known system limitations
• Support field deployments, customer demonstrations, and troubleshooting activities as required

ESSENTIAL EDUCATION, WORK EXPERIENCE, JOB SKILLS

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field
• Typically five or more years of experience developing controls, navigation, robotics, vehicle-dynamics, state-estimation, or autonomous-system software
• Strong understanding of classical and modern control theory, including feedback control, PID control, system dynamics, and stability
• Experience developing and tuning control algorithms on physical robotic, automotive, agricultural, aerospace, industrial, or heavy-equipment systems
• Experience with localization, navigation, trajectory generation, path tracking, route planning, or state estimation
• Proficiency in C++, Python, MATLAB/Simulink, or comparable engineering and software-development tools
• Experience developing software in Linux-based environments
• Familiarity with ROS, ROS2, or comparable robotics middleware
• Understanding of coordinate systems, transformations, vehicle kinematics, and vehicle dynamics
• Experience using simulation, recorded data, and physical testing to evaluate algorithm and system performance
• Experience developing production-quality software using version control, peer review, automated testing, and continuous integration practices
• Ability to analyze complex system behavior and troubleshoot software, sensor, vehicle, and system-integration issues
• Strong mathematical, analytical, debugging, and technical problem-solving skills
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional engineering and field teams

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, Controls, or a related discipline
• Experience developing GNC systems for autonomous agricultural equipment, off-road vehicles, heavy machinery, or mobile robots
• Familiarity with agricultural operations such as planting, spraying, tillage, harvesting, mowing, material application, or field preparation
• Experience with field coverage planning, row following, headland-turn planning, route optimization, or coordinated vehicle-and-implement control
• Experience with model-based design, system identification, controller tuning, or vehicle-dynamics modeling
• Experience with Kalman filters, extended Kalman filters, particle filters, or other state-estimation methods
• Experience with GNSS, RTK positioning, IMUs, encoders, odometry, and multi-sensor localization
• Familiarity with model predictive control, optimization-based control, trajectory optimization, or motion planning
• Experience integrating algorithms with vehicle-control units, embedded controllers, CAN networks, drive-by-wire systems, or agricultural equipment interfaces
• Experience with MATLAB/Simulink, C++, Python, Gazebo, or similar simulation and development tools
• Experience with software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, and recorded-data replay testing
• Familiarity with functional safety concepts and validation practices for autonomous or safety-critical systems
• Experience validating control systems in dusty, high-vibration, uneven, outdoor, agricultural, or industrial environments

BENEFITS

ASI offers a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• 401k with employer match
• Generous HSA contribution
• PTO, paid holidays, and flextime
• ASI covers 90% of employee medical plan costs

At Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI), we are committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace where all employees and applicants have equal opportunities. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected characteristic. ASI complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws regarding nondiscrimination in employment and is dedicated to providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities throughout the hiring process. Your employment with ASI will be "at will," meaning that either you or ASI may terminate your employment at any time for any lawful reason, with or without cause or advance notice.

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