SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Shield AI is seeking an Engineer II in Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) to develop and implement autonomous flight control systems for the Ranger (R6386) aircraft platform. You will work on core flight autonomy capabilities including Auto-Taxi and Automatic Take-Off and Landing (ATOL) algorithms, inner- and outer-loop flight control laws, guidance algorithms, and control allocation functions for conventional takeoff, wing-borne flight, and landing phases.
Key responsibilities include:
• Develop, implement, and test Auto-Taxi and ATOL algorithms and supporting flight-mode logic with technical guidance from senior engineers.
• Design and implement flight control laws, guidance algorithms, and control allocation functions across all flight phases.
• Support integration between flight autonomy and mission autonomy through A-GRA-aligned interfaces, implementing command handling, flight-mode transitions, vehicle-status reporting, and contingency responses.
• Develop and validate vehicle and subsystem models (aerodynamics, mass properties, propulsion, sensors, actuators, ground-contact dynamics) within a high-fidelity six-degree-of-freedom (6DOF) simulation environment.
• Execute verification activities including linear and nonlinear analysis, Monte Carlo campaigns, sensitivity studies, disturbance testing, and software- and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
• Analyze simulation, ground-test, and flight-test results to identify discrepancies, investigate root causes, and verify algorithm and model updates.
• Support flight-test preparation and execution through performance predictions, test-point analysis, telemetry review, and post-flight reconstruction.
• Collaborate with propulsion, aerodynamics, actuation, state estimation, embedded software, and autonomy engineers to resolve integration issues. Document designs, assumptions, and test results; participate in code and technical reviews.
Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. The company develops Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies.
REQUIREMENTS:
• 2+ years of relevant experience in flight controls, GNC, aircraft simulation, or autonomous aircraft development (directly relevant graduate research may count toward this requirement).
• Strong foundation in aircraft flight dynamics, feedback control, 6DOF equations of motion, coordinate transformations, and numerical methods.
• Hands-on experience in one or more of: vehicle modeling and simulation (implementing or validating mathematical models of aircraft or subsystem dynamics in 6DOF simulation); control law design and allocation (developing or evaluating fixed-wing control laws, actuator-command mixing, or control allocation functions); guidance and trajectory validation (implementing or testing trajectory validation algorithms, path-following, or flight-mode sequencing); or verification and test analysis (performing simulation campaigns, sensitivity studies, test-data analysis, or comparisons between predicted and measured aircraft behavior).
• Exposure to C++ development environments and implementing and debugging engineering algorithms.
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills, with ability to work through defined technical problems, communicate assumptions and limitations, and incorporate feedback from senior engineers.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
• Exposure to Auto-Taxi or ATOL algorithm development, including evaluation of approach and touchdown performance, crosswind response, runway tracking, go-around behavior, or degraded navigation conditions.
• Direct experience implementing or testing A-GRA-aligned interfaces or integrating a flight-autonomy system with a separate mission-autonomy provider.
• Strong C++ skills including object-oriented development, unit testing, and implementation of algorithms subject to real-time execution constraints.
• Familiarity with aircraft navigation, air data, altitude sensing, and effects of sensor errors, latency, and data validity on flight control and ATOL performance.
• Experience with software- or hardware-in-the-loop environments, Linux-based development, Git, and automated testing or CI/CD pipelines.
• Exposure to propulsion modeling, including integration of steady-state or transient NPSS models into a 6DOF simulation environment.
• Familiarity with flight safety, airworthiness verification, and preparation of supporting artifacts such as simulation descriptions, verification reports, or flying-qualities analyses.
• Experience working through iterative development and test cycles, including investigating discrepancies and verifying corrective changes.
