GNC Engineer (Missile Systems)

Location: Onsite near Denver, Colorado or Long Beach, California; U.S. work authorization required under ITAR regulations.

Salary: $115,000–$290,000 base salary annually, plus equity and benefits.

Company

hirify.global develops autonomous spacecraft, advanced payloads, mission software, and space-based interceptors for U.S. and allied space security missions.

What you will do

• Own GNC system development for missile systems from architecture and algorithm design through verification, hardware integration, flight testing, and operational deployment.
• Design, test, and validate GNC flight software and embedded algorithms across multiple flight regimes and environmental conditions.
• Develop navigation, state estimation, and sensor fusion algorithms using IMU, GPS/INS, seeker, and other sensor data.
• Implement guidance laws and autopilots, including proportional navigation, augmented and optimal guidance, and terminal guidance for maneuvering targets.
• Build high-fidelity 6-DOF simulation environments for aerodynamics, propulsion, atmospheric effects, target dynamics, sensors, and actuators.
• Verify stability, robustness, and mission performance through simulation, Monte Carlo analysis, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and flight-test correlation.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical engineering, physics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of relevant GNC engineering experience in the aerospace and defense industry.
• Strong knowledge of flight dynamics, aerodynamics, control systems, rigid-body dynamics, intercept geometry, state estimation, and real-time software development.
• Experience with C++ and/or Python for algorithm development, numerical methods, real-time control, or simulation.
• Ability to build, test, and debug flight software, real-time control systems, and simulation tools.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI U.S. government security clearance and satisfy ITAR eligibility requirements.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree or PhD in aerospace engineering, control systems, or an equivalent discipline.
• Experience with terminal guidance, adaptive or nonlinear control, gain scheduling, INS/GPS integration, and aerodynamic modeling.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop campaigns, flight testing, telemetry analysis, and flight-data reconstruction.
• Active TS/SCI clearance with polygraph.
• Familiarity with MISSILE DATCOM, MIL-STD-1553, or MIL-STD-1760.

Culture & Benefits

• Equity package included.
• Health, dental, vision, and HRA/HSA options.
• Paid time off and paid holidays.
• 401(k) and parental leave.
• Fast-paced, multidisciplinary engineering environment focused on complex space and defense systems.