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Senior Principal Engineer, GNC & State Estimation (R6233)

Shield AI· Hivemind Enterprise Division – Engineering
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Hybrid (San Diego, CA)$260k - $390kFull Time EmployeePosted 1w ago

About the role

Senior technical leader responsible for establishing and guiding the GNC and State Estimation direction for Hivemind Enterprise, building a new engineering team, and delivering production autopilot and flight-control software for Shield AI’s aircraft platforms.

Responsibilities

  • Establish the technical vision and roadmap for GNC and State Estimation for HME.
  • Build and scale the engineering team, recruiting and mentoring engineers and establishing standards.
  • Lead hands-on algorithm development for guidance, navigation, flight-control, and state estimation; contribute production code and tooling.
  • Deliver production autopilot and flight-control software from requirements through embedded implementation, testing, deployment, and sustainment.
  • Build a reusable GNC platform with modular algorithms and interfaces for multiple aircraft and customer integrations.
  • Accelerate the simulation-to-flight cycle with high-fidelity models, SIL/HIL testing, Monte Carlo analysis, and regression coverage.
  • Drive GNC and estimation contributions to Runtime Assurance (RTA) with monitoring, protection, and recovery capabilities.
  • Guide customers through airworthiness work, verification plans, and technical reviews with safety specialists.
  • Foster trusted technical partnerships across Shield AI and align with other GNC/state estimation leaders.

Qualifications

  • At least 15 years of professional experience in GNC, including hands-on development of aircraft flight controls, autopilot, navigation, and state estimation.
  • Expert knowledge of aircraft dynamics, stability and control, guidance, and estimation; practical flight systems experience.
  • Deep experience with state estimation, sensor fusion, inertial navigation, Kalman/nonlinear filtering, and robustness evaluation.
  • Proven shipping and support of production autopilot/flight-control/GNC software with flight testing and deployment experience.
  • Prior technical leadership experience (e.g., Principal Engineer, chief engineer) with cross-team influence.
  • Experience recruiting, mentoring, and building a new engineering capability or team.
  • Strong proficiency in C++ for production real-time software, MATLAB/Simulink, and Python.
  • Experience designing reusable algorithms and development tools for multiple platforms.
  • Safety-critical development and verification experience with requirements traceability and evidence for qualification/airworthiness.
  • Ability to operate in modern DevOps/CI pipelines with version control, code reviews, automated testing, and reproducible workflows.
  • Excellent communication and collaboration skills with track record of delivering roadmaps and earning trust.
  • Master’s degree in aerospace, Electrical, Mechanical, Robotics, Applied Math or Computer Science.

Skills

Required:GNC and state estimation leadershipAircraft dynamics, flight controls, navigationC++ (production, real-time)MATLAB/SimulinkPythonGNC algorithm development
Nice to have:System safety and airworthiness

Benefits

  • Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
  • Equity
  • Medical, dental, vision and other benefits (as part of standard full-time package)
Last updated Oct 23, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Shield AI

Autonomy for the world.

Our mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems.

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