What we're looking for
- PhD-level depth in control theory and estimation. You can derive and defend the architecture, not just tune it: robust control (H-infinity, mu-synthesis, LQG), optimal estimation (Kalman variants, IMM, nonlinear observers), multi-rate and sampled-data design, adaptive and learning-based disturbance rejection
- 10+ years closing loops on precision pointing, tracking or stabilization hardware, PhD research included, on systems that had to meet a measured spec in the field
- Microradian-class line-of-sight work: beam directors, fine steering mirrors, gimbaled EO/IR sensors, laser comm pointing-acquisition-tracking terminals, telescope or spacecraft pointing, or precision mechatronics at equivalent precision
- Hands-on system identification and plant modeling against real structural dynamics, and a record of models that predicted what the hardware then did
- Real-time implementation chops. You've shipped loops in C or C++ on embedded or RTOS targets, or worked tightly with the engineers who did, and you know what latency and quantization do to your margins
- Comfort being the technical anchor for controls on a small team, not the manager of a large one
Where you probably come from: Directed energy or beam control programs at primes and government labs (AFRL, MIT Lincoln Lab, NRL, APL, Sandia), laser communications terminal teams, EO/IR gimbal and stabilized-sensor houses, telescope or spacecraft precision pointing, adaptive optics groups, or a controls PhD group that transitioned its work onto real hardware.
We want to talk if: You've owned the jitter budget on a pointing system, held microradian precision in the field against moving targets, and the data matched your prediction. Your dissertation was in estimation, robust or adaptive control and you've since put that math on hardware that shipped. You can write the proof and the C++ in the same week.
Not a fit if: Your controls experience is PID tuning from a block library without the theory to say why it works. You're a theorist who has never closed a loop on real hardware, or a manager without recent hands-on work.
Education
PhD in Control Systems, Electrical, Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering, Applied Math, or a related field, with a dissertation in control or estimation theory. An MS plus a research-grade record of theory work put on fielded hardware can substitute.