Lead GNC Engineer

Lead GNC Engineer

Boulder, CO (Remote for first 3 – 6 months – then potential for Hybrid)

A pioneering space company developing next-gen orbital mobility solutions & Spacecraft are hiring a Lead GNC Engineer to to build and lead the guidance, navigation, and control team that will support our growing spacecraft programs. This is a hands-on leadership role for an engineer who doesn’t just design algorithms but ships them, and who wants to build a team that does the same.

In this role, you will hire, develop, and manage a team of GNC engineers while remaining technically active in the work. You will set the GNC architecture, engineering standards, and roadmap for our spacecraft and propulsion systems; implement and validate flight algorithms through hardware-in-the-loop testing; and represent GNC in design reviews and with customers.

Responsibilities:

• Build the GNC team: define the roles and skills needed to support our spacecraft programs, and lead recruiting, hiring, and onboarding.
• Provide people management for GNC engineers, including setting goals, directing work, supporting career growth, and managing performance.
• Define the GNC architecture, technical roadmap, and engineering standards across spacecraft and propulsion programs, including review standards, configuration management, and verification practices.
• Plan and prioritize GNC work across programs, including scope, staffing, and schedule, and escalate risks and resource needs to leadership.
• Design and implement GNC flight algorithms for spacecraft and propulsion systems (chemical and electric), including closed-loop burn execution, thrust and delta-v estimation, burn targeting, cutoff logic, and trajectory correction maneuvers.
• Own the GNC flight code: architecture, implementation, review standards, configuration management, and verification evidence.
• Lead development of six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) simulation capability for burn execution and dispersion analysis across multiple programs.
• Ensure stability analysis of control loops (classical margins, disturbance and slosh interaction, and actuator and sensor dynamics) is performed and documented to flight-review standards.
• Define hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test campaigns, including what to test, pass/fail criteria, fault injection cases, and test procedures, and validate flight software against simulation truth models and HIL results.
• Represent GNC in mission design reviews (PDR/CDR) and with customers, delivering analysis products such as pointing budgets, execution-error models, and dispersion results.

Experience required:

• Candidates must have a minimum of 8 years of GNC experience on space vehicles, with demonstrated ownership of algorithms from design through implementation and test.
• Candidates must have at least 2 years of experience leading engineers, as a people manager or a technical lead with responsibility for others’ work.
• Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, or a related field.
• Experience with:
• Hiring, developing, and managing engineers, and building a team’s technical culture and practices.
• Validating GNC software through hardware-in-the-loop testing, including defining test objectives and criteria.
• Flight software frameworks (e.g., cFS or F Prime) and real-time operating systems.
• MATLAB/Simulink, including model-based design of flight algorithms.
• Solid foundation in control theory and stability analysis (frequency- and time-domain methods, robustness margins).
• Working knowledge of spacecraft attitude dynamics, orbital mechanics, and propulsive maneuver design.
• Working knowledge of spacecraft mission operations, including ground-to-spacecraft communications, command and telemetry interfaces, and the operational constraints of executing GNC activities in flight.
• Hands-on experience with spacecraft sensors, including their operating principles, hardware interfaces, calibration, integration, and limitations in real-world flight systems.
• Practical experience developing and implementing GNC for propulsive spacecraft, including maneuver planning, thrust vector control, burn execution, and the interaction between propulsion systems and spacecraft dynamics.

Desirable experience - Experience with:

• Building a GNC team or function from an early stage.
• Full spacecraft GNC beyond propulsion, including attitude determination and control, sensor and actuator selection, and fault management.
• Taking GNC from design through flight and on-orbit operations.
• Writing flight or embedded software in C or Rust.
• Propulsion-specific GNC, such as finite-burn effects, thrust and Isp uncertainty, propellant slosh, and optimal jet select.
• Both chemical and electric propulsion control (long-duration low-thrust guidance a plus).
• Rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) guidance and relative navigation.
• Strapdown navigation, IMU error modeling, and sensor fusion.
• Monte Carlo and linear covariance dispersion analysis.
• Supporting government programs (e.g., NASA, DoD, or SBIR/STTR).