Senior GNC Engineer
San Francisco, CA | Onsite | Satellite Systems

A venture-backed aerospace company is building a next-generation satellite navigation system and is hiring a GNC Engineer to support spacecraft autonomy and orbital control. Their platform is designed to deliver high-precision, secure navigation services from low Earth orbit and is intended to operate independently of legacy systems.

This role sits on a small, senior GNC team responsible for designing and integrating the estimation, control, and state logic that runs onboard their spacecraft. You’ll be working across the full development cycle, from early modeling to flight software integration and on-orbit validation. Strong coding skills and real-world control systems experience are key.

They’re not looking for entry-level candidates. The team needs someone with 4-5+ years of experience, ideally with direct contributions to orbital guidance or control systems. A background in both open-loop and closed-loop control architectures is essential, along with proficiency in C++ and MATLAB.

What you’ll be doing

• Building and integrating real-time GNC software for small satellites

• Developing estimators, controllers, and autonomous state machines

• Designing fault detection and recovery logic for flight systems

• Creating and maintaining interfaces between GNC and core flight software

• Running full-cycle validation using SIL and HIL environments

• Writing and maintaining unit and regression test suites

• Working closely with simulation, embedded software, and hardware teams

You’ll need

• 4-5+ years of hands-on experience in GNC for space, aviation, or autonomous systems

• Experience with orbital mechanics, navigation, and control

• Strong coding ability in C++, MATLAB, and Python

• Familiarity with real-time systems and embedded flight software

• Background working in Linux and Git-based environments

• Bachelor’s degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical, or related engineering

• US citizenship

Bonus experience

• Master’s or PhD in a relevant technical discipline

• Experience with SIL/HIL testing and model-based design

• Background in autonomous systems or robotics

• Experience building infrastructure for safety-critical testing

Darwin Recruitment is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.

Adam Slade