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Lead Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer

Wardstone· Engineering
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Hybrid (El Segundo)$180k - $240kFull-timePosted 6d ago

About the role

You will own Wardstone’s guidance, navigation, and control stack, including the algorithms, simulations, and flight software that make our interceptors hit their targets. Lead architecture decisions, set GNC standards, and take GNC from simulation through hardware-in-the-loop testing to live intercepts.

Responsibilities

  • Lead the GNC team: hire, mentor, prioritize, review designs and code; own architecture and roadmap; set standards for simulation, verification, flight software quality, and analysis documentation.
  • Develop guidance: design guidance laws for midcourse and terminal homing under high-speed nonlinear dynamics; develop intercept prediction algorithms from seeker tracks and onboard state estimates.
  • Design flight control: lead actuation architecture tradeoffs (ADB, aerodynamic surfaces, thrust vectoring, divert thrusters); design and tune robust high-G, high-rate control loops; model actuator bandwidth, latency, saturation, and uncertainty.
  • Own navigation and estimation: own navigation filter and target-state estimator (EKF/UKF); fuse seeker tracks with IMU, GPS, and onboard timing; define seeker-to-guidance interface and ensure reliability under noise, latency, jitter, and thermal effects.
  • Build simulation and analysis: maintain high-fidelity 6DOF simulations including aerodynamics, propulsion events, actuator dynamics, and seeker models; run Monte Carlo and worst-case analyses to drive vehicle design decisions.
  • Test and fly: deliver real-time GNC flight software; run hardware-in-the-loop testing with real sensors and scene generators; lead ground and flight tests including tuning, data collection, and post-flight analysis.
  • Shape the vehicle: set controllability requirements that influence airframe, control surfaces, and propulsion; collaborate with propulsion on control authority and impulse timing.

Qualifications

  • B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or related field; M.S. or Ph.D. preferred.
  • 5+ years of GNC experience, including algorithms that have flown on real hardware.
  • Experience leading engineers or owning a major GNC subsystem from design through flight test.
  • Deep understanding of classical and modern control theory; strong background in guidance, state estimation, and nonlinear dynamics.
  • Experience building 6DOF flight simulations (MATLAB, Simulink, Python, or C++).
  • Hands-on experience tuning controllers for missiles, rockets, UAVs, or other autonomous flight systems.
  • Fluency with coordinate frames, quaternions, and navigation transformations.
  • Must be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual). Must be eligible to obtain a U.S. security clearance.

Skills

Required:Guidance, navigation, and control (GNC)6DOF flight simulationsEKF/UKF navigation estimationReal-time embedded flight software

Benefits

  • Base pay range is $180,000 – $240,000 per year.
Last updated Oct 21, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Wardstone

Satellites for Missile Defense

Wardstone is a space defense-tech company developing next-generation capabilities to protect the United States and its allies from missiles and other space-based threats. We design, build, and deploy satellites equipped with space-based interceptors to kinetically counter hypersonic and ballistic missiles.

space-explorationsatellitesrocketryaerospace
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