Principal Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer (Aerospace)

Location: On-site in El Segundo, California, United States. Relocation support may be available for new hires.

Salary: $215,000–$245,000 per year, plus potential 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 life cycle of guidance, navigation, and control development from initial design through vehicle integration, mission planning, flight, and on-orbit and reentry operations.
• Specify and size ADCS hardware, including reaction wheels, torque rods, IMUs, 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 and ground tooling using C++ and Python.
• Perform trajectory design, optimization, dispersion analysis, and Monte Carlo analysis for vehicle and mission capabilities.
• Integrate and test GNC sensors, actuators, and software in hardware-in-the-loop environments, monitor on-orbit performance, 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.
• 10+ years of proven experience, or a PhD with 7+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience designing, modeling, testing, and flying aerospace guidance, navigation, and control systems.
• Strong C++ and Python software and model development skills, with knowledge of orbital mechanics, modeling and simulation, and software development.
• Experience fitting first-principles models to test data or high-fidelity external simulations, along with systems engineering and configuration management skills.
• Must be a U.S. person authorized to work in the United States and permitted to access export-controlled technology under ITAR requirements.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree in engineering or physics.
• Spacecraft attitude determination and control system design experience.
• Experience with GMAT, POST2, Matlab, or Simulink.
• Knowledge of multi-body dynamics, flexible-body dynamics, gas dynamics, fluids, and thermodynamics.
• Experience supporting safety-critical flight tests or spacecraft and developing physical models for control design, component sizing, and system performance evaluation.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time employment with flexible paid time off and 12 paid holidays.
• Company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance, with FSA and employer-matched HSA options.
• Parental, family-building, pregnancy, parenting, and menopause benefits.
• 401(k) plan with a 6% immediately vested employer match and incentive equity.
• Daily lunch, twice-weekly dinner, wellness reimbursement, company events, and complimentary EV charging.