Senior GNC Engineer - Flight Controls

The GNC team at Pivotal develops the flight control and navigation algorithms that let our aircraft fly safely and precisely, including on the Helix family of aircraft. We are looking for a Senior GNC Engineer to design, tune, and verify flight control laws for our aircraft, taking them from analysis and simulation through flight test.

You will own the control laws for specific flight modes and control loops within the architecture set by the team’s technical leads. That includes analysis and tuning with CONDUIT, system identification to support our models, Monte Carlo and mission-level verification, and flight test support. You will work closely with the navigation, firmware, aeromechanical, systems engineering, and flight test teams, and help mentor less experienced engineers.

The ideal candidate is a fully qualified flight controls engineer who works independently, has designed and tuned control laws that were evaluated in flight test or piloted simulation, ideally on VTOL, rotorcraft, or eVTOL aircraft, and brings sound judgment to interpreting analysis and test results.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of industry experience in flight controls or GNC with a Bachelor’s degree, 3+ years with a Master’s degree, or a PhD with research in flight dynamics or flight controls, or equivalent experience.

Experience

• Hands-on experience designing and tuning flight control laws that were evaluated in flight test or piloted simulation.
• Solid understanding of aircraft flight dynamics, including modeling, linearization, and dynamic stability modes.
• Strong foundation in classical and modern control theory, including frequency-domain analysis, state-space methods, and stability margins.
• Experience with multi-loop flight control architectures, such as cascaded loops, explicit model following, or dynamic inversion.
• Experience using simulation to verify control law performance, including Monte Carlo or worst-case analysis.
• Proficiency in MATLAB and Simulink for control design, modeling, and simulation.
• Proficiency in Python or MATLAB for flight data analysis, and in C or C++ for writing application-level code.
• Strong communication skills, and the ability to work independently in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

• Master’s degree or PhD in Aerospace Engineering or a related field, with a focus on flight dynamics or flight controls.
• Experience using CONDUIT and CIFER.
• Experience with eVTOL, tiltrotor, rotorcraft, or other VTOL aircraft, including control through the transition between hover and forward flight.
• Experience with handling qualities specifications and evaluations, such as ADS-33, MIL-DTL-32742, and MIL-STD-1797, including piloted simulation evaluations.
• Experience flight testing control laws on full-scale or subscale aircraft.
• Experience with control allocation, envelope protection, or failure accommodation.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop and integrated simulation test environments.
• Experience with Git, continuous integration, and agile development workflows, including automated simulation-based regression testing.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools, such as Claude, to speed up algorithm development, coding, and data analysis.
• Familiarity with DO-178C, DO-331, ARP4754A, and ARP4761.
• Piloting or RC piloting experience, or a strong interest in aviation.

• Design, modify, and tune control laws for assigned flight modes and control loops, such as inner-loop attitude control, outer-loop velocity and position control, and mode transitions, within the established architecture.
• Analyze control laws against stability, performance, and handling qualities criteria, such as stability margins, bandwidth, disturbance rejection, and command tracking, using tools such as CONDUIT.
• Propose improvements to the control law architecture and design criteria based on analysis and test results.

• Perform system identification of the aircraft and its subsystems from flight and ground test data, using frequency-domain methods such as CIFER.
• Use identification results to update the flight dynamics models and simulation environment.

• Develop verification cases for the control laws, including Monte Carlo, worst-case, and failure-case simulations and automated mission-level tests, and analyze the results against requirements.
• Help write flight control requirements and trace them to designs and tests, working with the systems engineering team.
• Help plan flight test points for your area, support flight tests, and analyze flight data to evaluate control law performance and refine the design.

• Review designs and analyses from other engineers, and mentor less experienced engineers.
• Work with the firmware, aeromechanical, and flight test teams on integration issues such as actuator and sensor dynamics, time delays, and flight software implementation.

• Safety Above All: Demonstrates a proactive safety mindset by embedding safety into daily work, identifying and mitigating risks, encouraging open dialogue about safety concerns, and continuously improving practices and protocols.
• Customer Focus: Puts customers at the center of every action by understanding their challenges, delivering meaningful value, and supporting their success.
• Work Better Together: Seeks and values diverse perspectives, builds cross-functional relationships, and fosters trust through empathetic, fact-based communication and commitment to shared decisions.
• Be the Pilot: Drives results with clarity and purpose by focusing on what matters most, adapting to change, taking initiative, and owning outcomes.
• Embrace the Unknown: Navigates ambiguity with resilience and bold thinking, challenges the status quo, and combines innovative ideas with practical approaches to overcome obstacles and drive progress.
• Respect for People: Fosters a high-performance culture grounded in respect, professionalism, and support by balancing high expectations with a healthy, collaborative environment and being a trusted, dependable teammate.

Applicants must be eligible for employment in the United States and willing to work onsite at our HQ office in Palo Alto, CA.

Pivotal offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, and 401k plans.

Pivotal is the leader in the emerging market of electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft. We design, develop, and manufacture light eVTOL aircraft and are renowned for the BlackFly aircraft the world's first light eVTOL to fly manned missions and enter the consumer market.

Efficient, compact, and simple, Pivotal aircraft are designed for a wide range of consumer, public service, and defense applications. Our distinctive tilt-aircraft architecture and scalable platform have been flying for over 10 years. Last year we announced our next-generation aircraft, the Helix, which is rapidly progressing toward general release and scalable production in 2026.

Mobility is one of the most highly-valued areas of modern technology investments. This is the right company, in the right space, the right strategy, at the right time. If you are ready for adventure, we invite you to join our amazing team and grow with us.