GNC Engineer

As a Guidance, Navigation & Control Engineer at Applied Intuition Defence, you will design, integrate, and test core flight autonomy capabilities for aerial UAS platforms, from quadrotors to fixed-wing aircraft. You will write software for real autonomous aircraft systems and simulated models, build and improve aerial autonomy software architectures, and collaborate with third-party UAS vendors to integrate software onto OEM hardware. Your work will contribute directly to the core software stack, becoming a reusable capability that powers every program.

Responsibilities

• Write software that operates real autonomous aircraft systems including group 1-5 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as simulated models to accomplish tactical military missions
• Build, leverage, and improve aerial autonomy software architectures that are ultimately tested and deployed on real systems to accomplish military missions
• Collaborate with 3rd party UAS vehicle vendors to develop and integrate aerial autonomy software onto OEM hardware

Requirements

• Master's degree in Aerospace, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science or similar field
• 6+ years of hands-on experience developing GNC software for autonomous systems
• Experience developing autonomy algorithms in C++
• Experience developing or implementing outer-loop control systems or path planning algorithms
• Strong foundation in control theory, dynamics, and optimization, with experience applying them to real-world autonomous systems
• Experience developing and simulating 3DoF or 6DoF models of air vehicles to support GNC algorithm development
• Experience with flight testing and performing data analysis
• Experience with UAS GNC/navigation systems such as PX4 and Ardupilot
• Strong functional, procedural, data-oriented, and object-oriented programming experience
• General willingness to travel for company business between our offices, as well as to customer sites
• Must have ability to hold UK Security Clearance (current or previous preferred)

Nice to have

• Ability to use data visualization and debugging tools to support autonomy control development
• Experience developing in Docker and containerized development environments, using Linux-based operating systems (e.g., RHEL, Ubuntu), source control systems, and artifact registries
• Understanding of key technologies: C++, Python, DevOps, Containers, Linux
• Familiarity with software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) development and testing
• Experience with Bazel
• Experience working projects related to national security for one or more government agencies
• References who will describe them as low-ego, highly motivated, thoughtfully opinionated, strong communicators and curious listeners