Senior Satellite GNC Engineer, Leo

Senior Satellite GNC Engineer, Amazon Leo

Amazon Leo is building a constellation of thousands of low Earth orbit satellites to deliver fast, reliable internet beyond the reach of existing networks. As a Guidance, Navigation & Control engineer, you will design the algorithms, simulations, and onboard autonomy that keep every satellite precisely pointed and stable so the payload can serve customers below, and keep the fleet flying safely.

• Take your GNC algorithms from concept all the way to orbit, and stay close to them through integration, test, and on-orbit operations.
• Solve hard precise‑pointing, payload‑cueing, and fleet‑autonomy problems against demanding performance requirements.
• Work across the full lifecycle — design, simulation, test, and flight operations — rather than a narrow slice.
• Build and analyze the control system and algorithms; support development of flight hardware and software.
• Help integrate the satellite in labs and operate the GNC system in flight as a constellation of satellites flows through the production line into orbit.
• Write production C++ flight code that runs the algorithms on the satellite.
• Design concepts of operation that balance pointing and payload cueing, momentum management, power, thermal, and communications across all phases of the mission, including off‑nominal and contingency scenarios.
• Develop momentum management strategies using reaction wheels and magnetic torquers, and help size and lay out the GNC sensor and actuator suite — star trackers, magnetometers, sun sensors, IMUs, and GPS receivers — and the algorithms that consume them.
• Develop onboard autonomy, including Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery, so the fleet operates safely at scale with minimal intervention.
• Develop and validate models and simulations of the satellite and constellation across a range of fidelity levels, including 6‑DOF time‑domain simulation and Monte Carlo analysis, and run hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing to verify closed‑loop performance.
• Support component‑level environmental testing, functional and performance checkout, and subsystem and satellite integration in our labs.
• Analyze fleet telemetry in bulk and build the metrics, dashboards, and tooling that let us monitor and continuously improve pointing performance and payload operations time as the constellation grows.
• Operate the GNC system on orbit — reviewing fleet data, supporting maneuvers, and resolving anomalies when on-orbit behavior diverges from the ground model.
• Contribute to architecture, design, and code reviews, and document your algorithms, analyses, and results clearly.

This role spans a diverse set of problems across the spacecraft and network system. You will derive and prototype estimation and control algorithms, turn them into production flight code, and prove them out through 6‑DOF and Monte Carlo simulation and hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing in the lab. You will support satellite integration, and when something on orbit does not behave the way the ground model predicted, you will dig into fleet telemetry to find out why and drive the fix.

You will own problems end to end and have the focus to go deep on each one.

Our team brings deep experience across many satellite systems and other flight vehicles, with real bench strength in both our mission and the core GNC disciplines. We design, prototype, test, iterate, and learn together, and because GNC is central to safe flight, we tend to drive Concepts of Operation and many of the system‑level analyses on the program. We trust our engineers to pursue the problems they face in whatever way they find best, to choose their own tools and approaches, and to own the results.

If you want the autonomy to solve hard problems your way, and a team of strong engineers to do it with, you will feel at home here.

Export Control Requirement: Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

• PhD, or Master’s degree and…