Senior Guidance, Navigation, and Controls (GNC) Engineer

Location: On-site in El Segundo, California, United States. Candidates must be lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. and qualify as a U.S. person for access to export-controlled technology.

Salary: $169,067–$216,031 per year, plus eligibility for long-term incentives through stock options and/or long-term cash awards.

Company

hirify.global develops commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing payloads, reentry capsules, heat shields, and satellite buses.

What you will do

• Own the full GNC development lifecycle from analysis and design through unit testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, vehicle integration, flight testing, and mission operations.
• Specify ADCS hardware, including reaction wheels, torque rods, IMU/GPS systems, and star trackers.
• Design autonomous attitude control, collision avoidance, orbital rendezvous, burn-planning, and atmospheric reentry algorithms.
• Develop six-degree-of-freedom vehicle simulations in C++, Python, and MATLAB/Simulink, and run Monte Carlo analyses.
• Design trajectories, optimize reentry missions, perform dispersion analysis, and develop automated maneuver planning and scheduling tools.
• Monitor on-orbit performance, troubleshoot issues, integrate GNC sensors and actuators, and coordinate with spacecraft operators, third-party agencies, and the U.S. government.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in aerospace, mechanical, or electrical engineering, physics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of proven experience, or a PhD with 3+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience designing, modeling, testing, and flying aerospace guidance, navigation, and control systems.
• Strong software and model development skills, particularly in C++ and Python.
• Understanding of orbital mechanics, modeling and simulation, and software development.
• Experience fitting first-principles models to test data or high-fidelity external simulations.
• System engineering and configuration management experience.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• U.S. work authorization and U.S.-person status are required because the role involves export-controlled technology.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree in engineering or physics.
• Spacecraft attitude determination and control system design experience.
• Experience with GMAT, POST2, or similar tools.
• Understanding of multi-body dynamics, flexible-body dynamics, gas dynamics, fluids, and thermodynamics.
• Experience developing and verifying physical models for control design, component sizing, and system performance evaluation.
• Experience supporting safety-critical flight tests or spacecraft.
• Ability to manage risk and provide solutions using lean, state-of-the-art software development techniques.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time, on-site work at the El Segundo production and integration facility.
• Long-term incentives may include stock options and/or long-term cash awards.
• Employees are evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance in an inclusive, equal-opportunity environment.