Sr. Staff Engineer, GNC (R6391)

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai

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You will build and lead the Guidance & Control (G&C) team for Ranger, a fully autonomous aircraft designed for conventional runway takeoff and landing. You will own the team’s technical direction, development roadmap, and project execution, delivering flight control and flight-autonomy capabilities from requirements and architecture through flight verification.

What You'll Do: Build and lead the Ranger G&C team. Define staffing needs, establish clear technical ownership, and develop the team through mentorship, design reviews, and hands-on problem solving.

Own the G&C development roadmap. Translate program objectives into a phased plan for requirements development, algorithm maturation, simulation capabilities, software integration, verification, and flight testing. Establish measurable milestones and align priorities with program leadership and partner teams.

Own project execution and delivery. Scope and estimate work, allocate resources, manage schedules and cross-team dependencies, and track progress against deliverables. Identify technical and schedule risks early, drive mitigation plans, and communicate trade-offs and resource needs.

Define and deliver the G&C architecture, including Auto-Taxi and ATOL algorithms, inner- and outer-loop control laws, guidance, trajectory validation, flight-mode logic, and control allocation. Maintain stable, predictable aircraft performance through actuator constraints, disturbances, uncertainty, and defined degraded conditions.

Lead integration between flight autonomy and mission autonomy through A-GRA-aligned interfaces. Establish clear responsibilities for mission-level decision-making and vehicle-level execution, including command validation, flight-mode transitions, status reporting, and contingency coordination.

Lead development and validation of high-fidelity 6DOF simulation capabilities. Establish model fidelity requirements, validation plans, and uncertainty bounds to support control development, vehicle-level trades, and credible pre-flight performance predictions.

Own the G&C verification strategy and supporting compliance evidence. Define requirements-based acceptance criteria and verification coverage across linear and nonlinear analysis, Monte Carlo campaigns, sensitivity and failure studies, and software- and hardware-in-the-loop testing.

Drive cross-disciplinary trades with propulsion, aerodynamics, actuation, state estimation, embedded software, and autonomy teams. Translate G&C performance needs into subsystem requirements and resolve interface, timing, and integration issues.

Lead G&C preparation and analysis for ground and flight testing, including test-point selection, envelope-expansion planning, pre-flight predictions, and post-flight reconstruction. Provide evidence-based flight-readiness recommendations, resolve simulation-to-test discrepancies, and drive verified corrective changes.

What You'll Bring: Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in flight controls, GNC, or autonomous aircraft development, with demonstrated technical ownership of flight-vehicle systems from requirements and design through integration and flight test.
• Experience building or leading engineering teams, including establishing technical direction, assigning ownership, mentoring engineers, and delivering complex development efforts through coordinated team execution.
• Demonstrated ownership of technical roadmaps and project execution, including work scoping, effort estimation, staffing plans, milestone definition, dependency management, and technical risk reduction.
• Deep expertise in aircraft flight dynamics, classical and modern control theory, nonlinear systems, and fixed-wing control law design, including stability, performance, and robustness across the operating envelope.
• Strong experience developing or validating high-fidelity 6DOF simulations and using ground- and flight-test data to identify modeling limitations, characterize uncertainty, and improve predictive capability.
• Experience defining and executing requirements-based verification strategies, including linear and nonlinear analysis, Monte Carlo studies, integrated testing, and flight-test analysis.
• Experience integrating guidance, control, and flight-mode logic, with a clear understanding of the division between flight autonomy and mission autonomy and the interfaces needed to support feasible vehicle-level execution.
• Proficiency in C++, with experience implementing, reviewing, and debugging G&C or simulation software and addressing real-time execution constraints. Experience using MATLAB and/or Python for engineering analysis and verification.
• Strong technical judgment and communication skills, with the ability to resolve ambiguous, cross-disciplinary problems and clearly communicate decisions, assumptions, risks, and limitations to engineers and program leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading development, integration, or flight verification of autonomous fixed-wing aircraft.
• Direct experience defining, implementing, or verifying A-GRA-aligned interfaces, or integrating flight autonomy with a separate mission-autonomy provider.
• Experience building a G&C team or development capability for a new aircraft program, including establishing technical practices, simulation infrastructure, verification workflows, and development plans.
• Experience applying flight safety and airworthiness processes, deriving flight control requirements, and producing supporting artifacts such as simulation descriptions, verification reports, and flying-qualities analyses.
• Experience evaluating navigation errors, air data uncertainty, altitude-sensing limitations, latency, and data validity against flight control and ATOL performance requirements.
• Experience establishing software- and hardware-in-the-loop capabilities, automated regression testing, and CI/CD workflows using Linux, Git, and modern C++ development practices.
• Experience integrating steady-state or transient NPSS propulsion models or model outputs into a 6DOF simulation environment.
• Experience leading G&C execution in developmental flight-test programs, balancing rapid iteration with configuration control, verification rigor, and disciplined flight-readiness assessments.
• Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
• Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
• Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.
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• Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.