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REGENT is building Seagliders—wing-in-ground-effect craft that revolutionize regional coastal transportation. These vehicles travel just above water at 180 mph with 180-mile range on current battery technology, combining airplane speed with boat-like operating costs. The company is scaling from prototype to full production and seeking a Manager of Flight Controls & GNC to lead the team responsible for vehicle control across all operational regimes: floating, foiling, and flying in ground effect.
You will lead and grow the flight controls organization across multiple vehicle programs simultaneously—a full-scale prototype currently in flight test and the first certified production vehicle (which carries the highest design assurance level on the aircraft). The role spans three interconnected technical areas: guidance and navigation (autopilot, route-to-command translation, state estimation, height-above-surface), control laws and mode management (regime-specific control laws, transitions, mode logic), and sensors/inceptors/input selection (navigation and air-data sensor suite, pilot controls, input monitoring and trust logic).
Key responsibilities include building and developing the existing team while identifying gaps and hiring to fill them; staying hands-on with control models, analyses, and generated code; owning the controls release train into flight test and serving on console during flights; carrying the production control system through certification; establishing common controls tooling across vehicle programs; matching analytical rigor to criticality (certification-grade evidence for production, fast iteration for prototype); and integrating across vehicle disciplines (simulation, autonomy, embedded systems, aerodynamics, systems engineering, test).
You will balance leadership with technical depth, reviewing and reworking control models when flight test demands it, making difficult tradeoffs between speed and rigor, and translating technical work into test milestones. The role requires judgment about what is ready to fly, understanding of vehicle behavior from flight-test data, and the ability to work through both technical and team challenges in a fast-moving environment.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Demonstrated leadership in flight controls, GNC, or adjacent vehicle-controls discipline with experience leading technical teams, setting direction, developing engineers, and growing teams through thoughtful hiring.
- Track record of taking control laws from development through flight, including personal experience with simulate-fly-analyze-retune loops on real air vehicles, prototype first flight, or flight-test campaigns.
- Ownership of technical delivery: accountability for team output cleared to flight, translation of technical work into test milestones, and ability to work through technical and team challenges.
- Deep expertise in at least one core controls area (guidance/navigation, control laws/mode management, or sensors/inceptors) with strong systems-level fluency across all three.
- Strong hands-on controls and model-based development capability, including MATLAB/Simulink for control design, modeling, simulation, and analysis.
- Experience with flight controls analysis, optimization, and system identification tools and methods; familiarity with CONDUIT and CIFER especially valuable.
- Real-world flight-test judgment: experience supporting flight test on console, assessing data, understanding vehicle behavior, and making sound technical recommendations.
BONUS EXPERIENCE:
- Safety-critical flight controls and certification (DO-178C, ARP4754A, DO-330).
- Model-based or formal verification.
- Autocode and embedded flight software.
- INS/GNSS fusion and altimetry.
- Height-over-surface estimation.
- VTOL or multi-regime transition control.
- Handling qualities.
- Hardware-in-the-loop testing.
- Novel vehicle or maritime certification.
- Scaling a controls function in a startup environment.
