Senior Perception & Navigation Engineer - Spacecraft Autonomy

Lead Perception & Navigation Engineer - Build the Autonomy Stack for Next-Generation Spacecraft

Golden, Colorado | On-site

Join a well-funded, seed-stage space startup developing a new class of spacecraft designed to autonomously interact, assemble, and operate together in orbit. The platform depends on multiple spacecraft elements being able to detect one another, estimate relative position and motion, navigate in close proximity, and execute autonomous rendezvous and docking with a high degree of reliability. As the Lead Perception & Navigation Engineer, you will own the perception and navigation architecture that makes this autonomy possible.

You will lead development of the relative navigation, state estimation, sensor fusion, and perception systems that allow spacecraft to understand where they are relative to one another and safely close the loop from sensing through control. This is a hands-on technical leadership role with broad ownership across algorithms, sensor requirements, simulation, flight software, testing, and hardware integration. You will define the system from the ground up and work closely with controls, avionics, embedded software, and spacecraft systems engineers to bring autonomous proximity operations into flight.

We are a well-funded, seed-stage space technology company building modular spacecraft systems designed to operate collaboratively in orbit. Our team is developing the hardware and autonomy required for individual spacecraft elements to rendezvous, connect, and ultimately operate as a larger integrated vehicle. The company is moving toward flight demonstrations and expanding the core engineering team responsible for turning this architecture into an operational spacecraft platform.

• Lead the architecture and development of the spacecraft perception and navigation stack
• Own relative navigation and state estimation for rendezvous, proximity operations, approach, and docking
• Develop real-time algorithms for relative position, velocity, attitude, pose, and motion estimation
• Design and implement multi-sensor fusion architectures using EKF, UKF, nonlinear estimation, and related techniques
• Define sensing requirements including accuracy, update rate, latency, field of view, calibration, observability, and measurement quality
• Help select and characterize the sensor suite used for autonomous relative navigation
• Develop perception algorithms that convert raw sensor measurements into reliable relative-state information
• Build measurement and observation models for ranging, bearing, pose, and other relative-navigation inputs
• Own the technical interface between perception, navigation, guidance, and control
• Establish navigation accuracy and uncertainty budgets required for stable closed-loop spacecraft operations
• Develop sensor calibration, debiasing, outlier rejection, residual monitoring, and fault-handling approaches
• Build simulation environments to evaluate navigation and autonomy performance across nominal and off-nominal scenarios
• Develop flight-ready navigation and perception software in C++ and Python
• Integrate algorithms into onboard flight software and embedded computing environments
• Validate system performance through software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop testing
• Close the full perception-to-control loop on flight-like hardware
• Analyze estimator performance, covariance consistency, sensor behavior, and navigation uncertainty
• Develop autonomous capabilities that allow spacecraft to perceive, approach, align with, and interact with another vehicle
• Define system requirements and technical roadmaps for future generations of spacecraft perception and navigation
• Support flight operations, telemetry analysis, on-orbit performance monitoring, and anomaly investigations
• Contribute to absolute spacecraft navigation and orbit-state estimation after multiple spacecraft are operating as a combined vehicle

• Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, computer science, physics, mathematics, or a related technical field
• 4+ years of professional experience in perception, navigation, state estimation, sensor fusion, autonomy, or closely…