Principal GNC Engineer jobs in United States
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Mach Industries · 5 hours ago

Principal GNC Engineer

positionHuntington Beach, CA
timeFull-time
remoteOnsite
seniorityLead/Staff
date8+ years exp

Mach Industries is a rapidly growing defense technology company focused on developing next-generation autonomous defense platforms. The Principal GNC Engineer will own the control architecture for fixed-wing aircraft, leading the design, implementation, and validation of flight-critical control laws to ensure robust performance throughout various flight phases.

Drone ManagementIndustrialInfrastructureManufacturingNational Security

Responsibilities

Define control system architecture and requirements for fixed-wing vehicles (primary flight control, envelope protection, autothrottle/energy mgmt, and mode logic)
Design and implement control laws accounting for actuator limits, time delays, and sensor noise
Lead system identification and aerodynamic model development from wind-tunnel, CFD, and flight-test data; build accurate linearizations
Develop fault-tolerant and reconfiguration strategies (sensor/actuator FDI, control allocation, redundancy mgmt) with graceful degradation
Own verification & validation: SIL/HIL campaigns, Monte Carlo, and flight-readiness criteria; establish performance dashboards
Drive flight-test planning and execution; analyze logs, tune controllers, and iterate safely and quickly
Mentor the controls team, set technical standards, conduct design/code reviews, and influence roadmap and milestones

Qualification

Flight control systemsFlight dynamicsModern C++MATLAB/PythonVerification workflowsData analysisEnergy-based controlMentoringTeam collaborationProblem-solving

Required

Education: Bachelors in Engineering, Physics, Mathematics
Experience: 8+ years designing and fielding flight control systems for fixed-wing aircraft or high-performance UAVs, including flight test
Deep knowledge of flight dynamics, stability/controllability, and actuator/sensor modeling
Proficiency in modern C++ for embedded real-time implementations; strong MATLAB/Python for modeling, ID, and analysis
Demonstrated ownership of verification workflows (SIL/HIL), requirements traceability, and safety reviews
Familiarity with modern software workflows (git, code review, issue tracking) and data/telemetry analysis

Preferred

Experience with energy-based control, autothrottle, sideslip/yaw coordination, and advanced control allocation for over-actuated systems
Experience integrating with PX4 and ROS 2. Exposure to DO-178C/DO-331/ARP4754A processes or equivalent rigor
Comfort optimizing for resource-constrained processors and hard real-time constraints (latency/jitter budgets, numerics)

Benefits

Health insurance
Retirement plans
Opportunities for professional development

Company

Mach Industries

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Mach Industries is a defense manufacturing company that develops unmanned systems and defense infrastructure.
dateFounded in 2023
location
Huntington Beach, California, USA
people-size51-200 employees
web-link
https://www.machindustries.com

Funding

Current Stage
Growth Stage
Total Funding
$184.7M
Key Investors
BedrockSequoia Capital
2025-06-17Series B· $100M
2023-10-04Series A· $79M
2023-06-15Seed· $5.7M

Leadership Team

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Ethan Thornton
Member
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Recent News

PR Newswire
Mach Industries Introduces Dart™, a Scalable Counter-UAS System Designed to Defeat Adversarial Swarm Threats
2026-01-09
Business Insider
US weapons makers are working on making cheaper missiles before a war with China exposes a costly weakness
2025-10-25
TechCrunch
AI and the Future of Defense: Mach Industries’ Ethan Thornton at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025
2025-09-17
Company data provided by crunchbase