Senior GNC Engineer (Aerospace)

Location: On-site in El Segundo, California, United States

Salary: $169,067–$216,031 per year, plus eligibility for 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, built and operated in-house.

What you will do

• Own the full GNC development lifecycle from analysis and design through unit, hardware-in-the-loop, on-vehicle, and flight testing.
• Specify and size ADCS hardware, including reaction wheels, torque rods, IMUs, GPS, and star trackers.
• Design autonomous attitude control, collision avoidance, orbital rendezvous, burn-planning, and atmospheric reentry algorithms.
• Design and optimize spacecraft trajectories, perform dispersion and Monte Carlo analyses, and develop six-degree-of-freedom vehicle simulations in C++, Python, and MATLAB/Simulink.
• Integrate and test GNC sensors, actuators, and software; develop automated maneuver planning and scheduling tools.
• Monitor on-orbit performance, troubleshoot issues, support mission operations, 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 relevant experience, or a PhD with 3+ years of relevant experience.
• Demonstrated 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 anchoring or fitting first-principles models to test data or high-fidelity external simulations.
• Proven systems engineering and configuration management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Must be a U.S. person authorized to work in the United States and permitted to access export-controlled technology without an export license.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree in engineering or physics.
• Experience with spacecraft attitude determination and control system design.
• 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 continuously and provide solutions using lean, state-of-the-art software development techniques.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on in-house spacecraft, reentry capsule, pharmaceutical processing, and satellite-bus systems.
• On-site work at the El Segundo office and production facility, where vehicles, equipment, and materials are built, integrated, and tested.
• Eligibility for long-term incentives through stock options and/or long-term cash awards.
• Employment is subject to U.S. employment authorization, export-control access requirements, and E-Verify verification.