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Senior Principal Engineer

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Senior Principal Engineer in USA

  • Shield AI
  • Full time
  • Email
  • San Diego, CA

Responsibilities

  • Establish HME’s GNC and state-estimation technical vision, roadmap, architecture, and development priorities.
  • Build and grow a specialist engineering team through recruiting, assessment, onboarding, mentorship, and engineering standards.
  • Design, implement, tune, and validate guidance, navigation, flight-control, sensor-fusion, and state-estimation algorithms.
  • Deliver production autopilot and flight-control software through modeling, embedded implementation, integration, verification, flight testing, customer deployment, and sustainment.
  • Create reusable GNC algorithms, interfaces, vehicle and sensor abstractions, configuration mechanisms, and validation tools for multiple aircraft and customer integrations.
  • Develop high-fidelity simulation, software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop testing, Monte Carlo analysis, regression coverage, and flight-data analysis workflows.
  • Lead GNC and estimation contributions to runtime assurance, monitoring, protection, recovery, safety, and pilot-team capabilities.
  • Support customers with technical airworthiness requirements, operating limits, verification plans, qualification evidence, and technical reviews.
  • Build technical partnerships across GNC, state estimation, simulation, safety, airworthiness, and aircraft program teams.

Requirements

  • At least 15 years of professional GNC experience, including hands-on aircraft flight controls, autopilot, navigation, and state-estimation development.
  • Expert knowledge of aircraft dynamics, stability and control, guidance, estimation, inertial navigation, Kalman or nonlinear filtering, sensor characterization, and estimation robustness.
  • Demonstrated experience shipping and supporting production autopilot, flight-control, or integrated GNC software through flight testing and operational or customer deployment.
  • Significant experience as a technical lead, Principal Engineer, chief engineer, or equivalent with ownership of complex technical decisions across multiple teams.
  • Experience recruiting, mentoring, and developing technical talent and establishing or growing a specialist engineering capability.
  • Strong current proficiency in C++ for production real-time software, MATLAB/Simulink or equivalent modeling tools, and Python or comparable analysis and automation tools.
  • Extensive experience validating GNC systems through high-fidelity simulation, software-in-the-loop testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and flight-test analysis.
  • Experience with safety-critical development and verification, requirements traceability, technical reviews, configuration management, and qualification or airworthiness evidence.
  • Experience designing reusable algorithms, libraries, interfaces, or development tools for multiple platforms, programs, or engineering teams.
  • Experience with version control, code review, continuous integration, automated testing, and reproducible simulation and analysis workflows.
  • Strong communication and collaboration skills with experience setting technical roadmaps, delivering commitments, incorporating customer feedback, and building trust with senior technical peers.
  • Master's degree in aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, robotics, applied mathematics, or computer science.
  • Preferred experience includes GCAS/ACAS, detect-and-avoid, flight-envelope protection, runtime assurance, safety monitors, recovery controllers, military or civil airworthiness, DO-178C, GNSS-degraded or denied navigation, APNT, multiple aircraft configurations, robust or nonlinear control, model predictive control, trajectory optimization, system identification, advanced estimation, or a master's degree or PhD focused on controls, navigation, estimation, robotics, or autonomous systems.

Benefits

  • Full-time regular employees receive pay within the listed range, bonus, benefits, and equity.
  • Temporary employees receive pay within the listed range and a temporary benefits package applicable after 60 days.
  • Offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check.
  • Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits.

Salary: $260k - $390k/yr

Shield AI

Shield AI builds autonomous systems for military and national security customers, combining its Hivemind autonomy software with V-BAT and X-BAT unmanned aircraft and Aechelon simulation technologies. The privately held company sells hardware, software, and related services to U.S. and allied defe...

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