Senior System Engineer

Senior Systems Engineer - GNC & Flight Controls

Location: Palo Alto, CA | Onsite

Employment Type: Full-Time

About the Opportunity

We are partnering with an innovative aerospace company developing next-generation electric aircraft technology to hire a Senior Systems Engineer focused on Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) and Flight Controls.

This role sits at the intersection of systems engineering and flight controls. Rather than being solely focused on algorithm development, this engineer will own requirements, interfaces, traceability, verification, and validation for safety-critical GNC and flight-control functionality.

The position works closely with GNC, embedded software, avionics, electrical, simulation, and flight-test teams throughout the aircraft development lifecycle.

What You'll Do

• Develop, decompose, allocate, and manage system and subsystem requirements for GNC and flight-control systems
• Own requirements traceability and support verification closure
• Define and manage interfaces between GNC, flight controls, avionics, embedded software, sensors, actuators, and other aircraft systems
• Develop verification and validation strategies, plans, procedures, and acceptance criteria
• Support system integration across simulation, SIL, HIL, bench, and aircraft environments
• Analyze system behavior, test results, and anomalies to identify root causes and drive resolution
• Partner closely with GNC and flight-control engineers to ensure system-level requirements are correctly implemented and verified
• Maintain requirements and engineering artifacts within requirements-management tools
• Support safety, certification, and airworthiness activities
• Participate in design reviews and technical decision-making across multidisciplinary engineering teams

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline
• 5+ years of systems engineering experience in aerospace, autonomous vehicles, robotics, automotive, or another safety-critical electromechanical environment
• Strong understanding of GNC, flight controls, controls, vehicle dynamics, state estimation, or closely related systems
• Demonstrated experience with requirements development, decomposition, allocation, and traceability
• Experience with system verification and validation
• Experience defining and managing complex system interfaces
• Experience with requirements-management tools such as Jama, DOORS, Polarion, or Codebeamer
• MATLAB and/or Simulink experience
• Experience with SIL, HIL, simulation, bench testing, vehicle testing, and/or flight testing
• Working knowledge of C/C++ and Python
• Strong cross-functional communication and technical problem-solving skills

Preferred Experience

• Aerospace GNC or flight-controls experience
• eVTOL, UAV, autonomous aircraft, or advanced air-mobility experience
• Jama experience
• DO-178C and/or DO-331 experience
• ARP4754A/B and ARP4761 experience
• Aircraft certification or airworthiness experience
• Experience integrating safety-critical flight-control systems onto an aircraft

This is an onsite opportunity in Palo Alto, CA for a systems engineer who understands flight controls and can bridge the gap between requirements, implementation, integration, and verification on a next-generation aircraft platform.