What are the responsibilities and job description for the GNC Engineer position at Poseidon Aerospace?
About Poseidon Aerospace
Poseidon Aerospace builds and operates unmanned planes for commercial logistics and defense missions. Our two full-size fixed-wing platforms - Heron, a seaplane, and Egret, a STOL aircraft - can carry two tons of payload over a thousand nautical miles. We are headquartered in San Francisco with satellite offices in Washington, DC and Maine.
As a GNC Engineer at Poseidon Aerospace, you will develop and implement control systems to ensure accurate and reliable performance of our aircraft. Your work will include vehicle dynamics modeling, flight control system design, and integrating your solutions into flight-ready avionics. We’re looking for someone who brings comprehensive GNC development skills to the team, from modeling to practical implementation.
Responsibilities
Poseidon Aerospace builds and operates unmanned planes for commercial logistics and defense missions. Our two full-size fixed-wing platforms - Heron, a seaplane, and Egret, a STOL aircraft - can carry two tons of payload over a thousand nautical miles. We are headquartered in San Francisco with satellite offices in Washington, DC and Maine.
As a GNC Engineer at Poseidon Aerospace, you will develop and implement control systems to ensure accurate and reliable performance of our aircraft. Your work will include vehicle dynamics modeling, flight control system design, and integrating your solutions into flight-ready avionics. We’re looking for someone who brings comprehensive GNC development skills to the team, from modeling to practical implementation.
Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain our simulation environment for analyzing aircraft attitude, stability, and flight performance.
- Design and implement flight control algorithms directly on hardware, taking ownership of software development for GNC systems.
- Use simulation data to inform and optimize control system design, focusing on flight dynamics and performance.
- Collaborate closely with avionics and software engineers to ensure reliable and efficient control and navigation solutions.
- Analyze flight trajectories, control profiles, and stability characteristics to maximize aircraft performance and safety.
- Contribute to high-level design decisions related to aircraft control systems and flight performance.
- Support prototyping efforts by implementing and testing control algorithms on prototype hardware.
- Tackle complex and novel challenges related to precise and reliable aircraft control, particularly in dynamic and changing environments.
- Demonstrated technical ownership of functional vehicle control systems, including design and simulation (e.g., "I developed and tested the GNC for XYZ aircraft").
- Experience creating simulation environments from the ground up, with a clear understanding of best practices.
- Experience implementing flight control and/or navigation algorithms on aircraft or similar high-performance vehicles.
- Familiarity with verification and validation of GNC flight software, including the use of 6-DOF simulations and hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testing.
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to develop creative solutions for real-world control challenges.
- Fundamentals of C /python/simulink for implementing control algorithms