Senior Principal Engineer, GNC & State Estimation (R6233)
San Diego · USD 260,000-390,000 / year · Onsite · Posted Oct 9, 2026
At a glance
- Workplace
- Onsite
- Location
- San Diego
- Salary
- USD 260,000-390,000 / year
About the role
- Shield AI is seeking a Senior Principal Engineer for GNC & State Estimation to establish the technical vision, roadmap, and architecture for HME's guidance, navigation, and control systems.
- This role involves building a new engineering team from the ground up, leading hands-on algorithm development, and delivering production autopilot and flight-control software for intelligent defense systems.
Responsibilities
- Establish the technical vision and roadmap, owning HME’s GNC and State Estimation technical strategy, architecture, and development priorities.
- Build the team from the ground up by defining capabilities, recruiting and assessing engineers, and establishing onboarding, mentorship, and engineering standards.
- Lead hands-on algorithm development to design, implement, tune, and validate guidance, navigation, flight-control, and state-estimation capabilities.
- Deliver production autopilot and flight-control software, guiding capabilities from requirements through embedded implementation, integration, verification, and deployment.
- Build a reusable GNC platform by establishing modular algorithms, interfaces, vehicle and sensor abstractions, and validation tools supporting multiple aircraft.
- Accelerate the simulation-to-flight development cycle by working with simulation and test teams to establish vehicle models and automated testing frameworks.
- Drive GNC and estimation contributions to RTA by partnering with safety and pilot teams on monitoring, protection, and recovery capabilities.
- Guide customers through technical airworthiness work by helping establish operating limits, verification plans, and supporting evidence.
- Build trusted technical partnerships across Shield AI by developing relationships with peer GNC and State Estimation leaders and sharing reviews.
- Contribute directly to critical algorithms, production code, and engineering tools while taking direct ownership of difficult technical problems.
Requirements
- At least 15 years of professional experience in GNC, including substantial hands-on development of aircraft flight controls, autopilot capabilities, navigation, and state estimation.
- Expert knowledge of aircraft dynamics, stability and control, guidance, and estimation, with demonstrated ability to apply that knowledge to practical flight systems.
- Deep experience with state estimation and sensor fusion, including inertial navigation, Kalman or nonlinear filtering, and sensor characterization.
- A demonstrated record of shipping and supporting production autopilot, flight-control, or integrated GNC software, including flight testing and deployment.
- Significant experience as a technical lead, Principal Engineer, chief engineer, or equivalent, with ownership of complex technical decisions.
- Demonstrated ability to recruit, mentor, and develop strong technical talent, including experience establishing a new engineering capability.
- Strong current proficiency in C++ for production, real-time software, together with MATLAB/Simulink or equivalent modeling tools and Python or comparable analysis and automation tools.
- Extensive experience designing, tuning, and validating GNC systems through high-fidelity simulation, software-in-the-loop testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and flight-test analysis.
- Experience with safety-critical development and verification, including requirements traceability, technical reviews, configuration management, and qualification evidence generation.
- Master's degree in aerospace engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Applied Mathematics or Computer Science.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with GCAS / ACAS, detect-and-avoid, flight-envelope protection, or related flight-safety capabilities.
- Direct experience developing or validating Runtime Assurance architectures, safety monitors, recovery controllers, or assured-autonomy capabilities.
- Experience guiding customers or aircraft programs through military or civil airworthiness processes, including engagement with relevant technical authorities.
- Familiarity with DO-178C or comparable development-assurance processes and RTA guidance.
- Experience deploying navigation and estimation capabilities in GNSS-degraded or denied environments, including integration of APNT sources.
- Experience across multiple aircraft configurations, such as fixed-wing, VTOL, or rotorcraft, and adapting shared GNC capabilities to different flight envelopes.
- Advanced expertise in areas such as robust or nonlinear control, model predictive control, trajectory optimization, system identification, or advanced estimation.
- Master’s degree or PhD with an emphasis on controls, navigation, estimation, robotics, or autonomous systems.
Benefits
- Bonus
- Benefits
- Equity
Skills
- C++
- MATLAB
- Simulink
- Python
- State Estimation
- Sensor Fusion
- Inertial Navigation
- Autopilot
- Flight Controls
- DO-178C
- Simulation
