Darwin Recruitment are hiring for a Senior GNC Engineer on behalf of a space company that are delivering elite Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C), avionics, and mission simulation services. TAheir engineers bring NASA-grade technical excellence to commercial, civil, and defence spaceflight programs. Their current workforce is ~70% remote, supporting clients nationwide across critical spaceflight and defence programs.

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Position Overview

They are seeking a Senior GN&C Engineer with deep expertise in all phases of GN&C design and team development, including Flight Software integration and mission-critical navigation systems for powered flight vehicles. This role will lead GN&C architecture, system integration, and simulation efforts for both civil space and strategic defence programs.

This role is not focused on satellites-it requires hands-on experience with spacecraft and powered flight systems, including terrain-relative navigation, ladar and optical sensors, and vision-based navigation and controls.

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Key Responsibilities

* Lead and support GN&C design and simulation from early concept through flight validation.

* Develop and integrate GN&C algorithms into flight software frameworks.

* Architect and test optical and synthetic navigation systems (ladar, terrain-relative nav, computer vision).

* Guide and mentor engineering teams across navigation, control, and simulation domains.

* Lead modeling and simulation using tools such as MATLAB/Simulink, C++, and hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) environments.

* Contribute to GN&C system verification, sensor selection, and mission assurance processes.

* Support NASA and DoD programs through reviews (PDR, CDR) and customer technical interfacing.

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Preferred Experience

* End-to-end GN&C development for powered flight systems such as launch vehicles, atmospheric reentry vehicles, interceptors, landers, or entry-descent-landing (EDL) vehicles.

* Terrain-relative navigation (TRN) and vision-based navigation using optical cameras, LiDAR, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), or fused inertial navigation systems.

* Development and integration of GN&C flight algorithms into embedded or real-time flight software environments.

* Strong background in controls engineering, including PID and state-space design, actuator modeling, and closed-loop performance validation.

* Experience with real-time sensor fusion techniques (e.g., Kalman filtering, SLAM) integrating IMUs, star trackers, LiDAR, and/or visual odometry.

* Mission work on lunar landing, planetary entry/descent/landing, missile guidance, or autonomous aircraft/vehicles.

* Familiarity with hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) and Monte Carlo simulation for GN&C system validation.

* Experience leading or supporting Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs) and Critical Design Reviews (CDRs) in NASA, DoD, or commercial flight programs.

* Comfort working in agile, multidisciplinary teams, collaborating with avionics, propulsion, and software engineers.

* Proficiency with tools like MATLAB/Simulink, C++, Python, and optionally FreeFlyer or similar astrodynamics tools (only if applicable to trajectory modeling).

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

James Godfrey