Staff Software Engineer (Guidance, Navigation & Tracking)
Location: Hawthorne - 20 minutes from LAX
Onsite requirements: 4 days onsite (Mon-Thurs)
Engagement: 3-6 month contract to hire (with top performers converting earlier
Contract type: W2 - with benefits (healthcare, dental, vision, 401k)
Role Overview
We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Staff Guidance, Navigation & Tracking (GNT) Software Engineer to join our R&D team. This role will lead the design, development, and integration of autonomous and semi-autonomous flight software for next-generation aerial systems.
Working on a clean-sheet airframe design, you will be responsible for developing guidance, navigation, tracking, and mission autonomy capabilities that enable effectors and unmanned aircraft to operate effectively in complex environments. This is a highly hands-on engineering role requiring deep technical expertise across system architecture, algorithm development, software implementation, hardware integration, and flight testing.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop, and implement guidance, navigation, tracking, and autonomy algorithms for unmanned aerial systems and airborne platforms.
- Develop flight software enabling autonomous and semi-autonomous navigation, mission execution, and target tracking capabilities.
- Lead the architecture and implementation of GNT systems for a clean-sheet air vehicle design.
- Develop software on embedded and Linux-based flight computing platforms.
- Integrate guidance and navigation software with flight hardware, sensors, autopilots, and mission systems.
- Support system integration, hardware/software testing, verification, validation, and flight test activities.
- Collaborate closely with airframe, systems, and mission engineering teams to optimize overall vehicle performance.
- Contribute across multiple product families as the organization expands its autonomous systems portfolio.
Minimum Experience
- Bachelor's degree or higher in Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Applied Mathematics, or a related discipline.
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including object-oriented software development.
- Demonstrated experience designing and implementing Guidance, Navigation & Tracking (GNT) algorithms for airborne platforms.
- Strong understanding of flight dynamics, state estimation, navigation, sensor fusion, trajectory generation, path planning, target tracking, and autonomous flight behaviours.
- Proven experience developing software for flying vehicles, including drones, missiles, aircraft, helicopters, spacecraft, or similar airborne systems.
- Ability to independently design, develop, implement, integrate, and validate complete GNT solutions.
- Extensive experience with microcontroller-based systems (STM32 or similar) and Linux-based embedded computing platforms such as Nvidia Jetson, AMD/Xilinx SoCs, or similar architectures.
- U.S. Person status required due to access restrictions on controlled data and systems.
Highly Desirable Experience
- Development of GNT systems from first principles for new aircraft or autonomous platforms.
- Significant modification, redesign, or extension of open-source autopilot frameworks such as ArduPilot or PX4, particularly within guidance, navigation, mission autonomy, or tracking subsystems.
- Experience with advanced tracking algorithms, target localization, sensor fusion, and contested navigation environments.
- Experience integrating EO/IR, radar, GNSS-denied navigation, or other mission sensors into autonomous systems.
- Current or previous DoD security clearance.
- Part 107 Remote Pilot Certification.
- Experience with FPGA firmware development using VHDL and AMD/Xilinx development environments.
- Experience with Git-based development work flows.
- Experience with production-level software deployment, DevOps, DevSecOps, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience delivering high-TRL systems through full lifecycle development, integration, verification, validation, and operational deployment.