Flight Controls Engineer

$120K-140K BASE SALARY + EQUITY + BENEFITS

Droneforge builds low-cost autonomous aerial systems designed to accomplish real work in real environments. We combine our own hardware, autonomy software, and programmable FPV drones to make capable robotic deployments dramatically more accessible and scalable. We’re hiring a Flight Controls / Guidance, Navigation, and Control Engineer to help move these systems from controlled indoor environments into reliable outdoor operation. You’ll analyze real flight data, identify system dynamics, improve state estimation, tune controllers, design experiments, and validate your work on physical aircraft.

This is a full‑time, on‑site Flight Controls / GNC Engineer role based in El Segundo, CA. You will design, implement, and test the control and state‑estimation systems that enable our low‑cost autonomous UAVs to operate reliably in real‑world environments. Your work will include modeling vehicle and sensor dynamics, identifying systems from flight data, tuning control laws, integrating flight‑control software with our autonomy OS, and validating performance through simulation, hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing, and physical flight tests.

You will diagnose instability, sensor noise, latency, and tracking failures, then turn those findings into production improvements. You will own the majority of this pipeline and iterate quickly; your code and control systems will directly affect more than 200 active deployments.

• Strong foundation in classical and modern flight‑control theory, including plant modeling, system identification, Laplace transforms, transfer functions, state‑space representations, stability analysis, frequency‑domain methods, and feedback‑controller design.
• Familiarity with state estimation and sensor fusion—including Kalman filters—and the ability to apply these concepts to aerial systems with noisy sensors, communication delays, and imperfect models.
• Knowledge of aerospace engineering and aerodynamics principles relevant to unmanned‑aircraft performance and stability.
• Understanding of aircraft‑design concepts, including configuration tradeoffs, stability, and actuator or control‑surface integration.
• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.