GNC Engineer

Peregrine Industries builds affordable, U.S.

-made autonomous systems for tactical strike, counter-UAS, training, and defense modernization missions. Our platforms include Kestrel and DRACO, backed by PTEC, our modular tactical effects core.

We move fast, hold ourselves to honest engineering standards, and build hardware that has to work the first time in the field.

We are seeking a hands-on Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineer to own and mature the flight-control systems that make Peregrine aircraft fly, navigate, and perform reliably in operational environments.

You will work across control laws, state estimation, flight dynamics, simulation, autopilot software, sensors, actuators, propulsion, telemetry, and autonomy. This is not a simulation-only role. You will develop algorithms, integrate them into real aircraft, analyze flight data, troubleshoot anomalies, and support flight testing in the field.

The ideal candidate understands how the entire flight stack works together and can trace problems across sensors, estimators, controllers, actuators, airframe dynamics, and software. You will work directly with our autonomy, embedded software, electrical, mechanical, and flight-test teams to rapidly improve Kestrel and future Peregrine systems.

• Own and develop GNC capabilities for Peregrine fixed-wing and VTOL aircraft, including stabilization, guidance, navigation, flight control, and transition logic.
• Design, implement, tune, and flight-validate attitude, rate, position, velocity, and trajectory-control algorithms.
• Develop and tune state-estimation and sensor-fusion systems using IMU, GNSS, barometer, magnetometer, air-data, and other navigation inputs.
• Develop guidance and navigation capabilities for autonomous mission execution, waypoint navigation, terminal behaviors, and degraded or GNSS-denied environments.
• Work with autonomy and software engineers to integrate mission logic, perception, navigation, and vehicle-control functions.
• Integrate and troubleshoot flight-critical subsystems including autopilots, sensors, servos, ESCs, propulsion systems, datalinks, telemetry, and ground-control stations.
• Build and maintain flight-dynamics and 6
  
  DOF simulation models for control development, tuning, and validation before flight.
• Analyze flight logs and telemetry to identify instability, estimator errors, sensor faults, actuator issues, aerodynamic effects, and software defects.
• Support structured ground and flight testing, including test planning, instrumentation, parameter tuning, data collection, and post-flight analysis.
• Use flight-test results to improve aircraft stability, navigation accuracy, maneuverability, reliability, and mission performance.
• Develop internal tools and scripts for simulation, flight-data analysis, tuning, and system debugging.
• Work directly with aircraft in the shop and field and support customer demonstrations and operational test events as required.

• 3+ years of hands-on experience in GNC, flight controls, autonomy, robotics, or a closely related aerospace discipline.
• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• Strong fundamentals in classical and modern control theory, rigid-body dynamics, state estimation, and aircraft flight dynamics.
• Hands-on experience developing, tuning, or modifying flight-control systems on real flying hardware.
• Experience with fixed-wing, VTOL, multicopter, or other autonomous aircraft.
• Experience with EKF-based state estimation and multi-sensor fusion.
• Experience with PX4, Ardu Pilot, or comparable embedded autopilot architectures.
• Proficiency in C/C++ and/or Python.
• Experience with MATLAB,…