Principal GNC Engineer (Aerospace)

Location: hirify.global is headquartered in north Austin, Texas. ITAR export-control eligibility is required: U.S. citizenship, lawful permanent residence, protected-individual status, or eligibility to obtain the required U.S. Department of State authorizations.

Company

hirify.global is a space and defense technology company developing launch, landing, and space systems for missions from Earth to the Moon and beyond.

What you will do

• Act as a technical authority for launch vehicle guidance, navigation, and control systems across programs.
• Develop and validate GNC methodologies, tools, algorithms, and best practices for complex missions.
• Lead the resolution of challenging and flight-critical GNC problems, including anomaly investigations.
• Review launch vehicle GNC designs, changes, risks, requirements, testing, and verification.
• Shape GNC strategy, technical roadmaps, capability development, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Represent GNC in executive reviews, customer meetings, proposals, mission operations, and mentor engineers at all levels.

Requirements

• Master’s degree or PhD in aerospace engineering or a related field, or a bachelor’s degree with equivalent substantial technical accomplishments.
• 10+ years of launch vehicle GNC experience with technical leadership across multiple programs.
• Experience supporting operational launch vehicle missions through multiple flight campaigns.
• Expertise in launch vehicle dynamics, GNC disciplines, flight software, and physics simulations.
• Proficiency with Python, C++, Linux, version control, code review, testing, documentation, and CI/CD.
• Must meet ITAR export-control eligibility requirements for U.S. persons or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations.

Nice to have

• PhD research contributions in a launch vehicle GNC specialization.
• Experience leading programs from development through multiple successful flights.
• Patents, publications, presentations, or other contributions advancing the state of the art.
• Experience influencing technical direction across multidisciplinary organizations and supporting customer mission success.

Culture & Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision plans with low plan deductibles.
• Parental leave and short-term disability coverage.
• Educational reimbursement.
• Flexible PTO options.
• Opportunities to contribute to high-impact spaceflight missions and develop technical leaders.