Principal OR Sr. Principal Guidance Navigation Controls Engineer

Principal Or Senior Principal Guidance Navigation Controls Engineer

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon.

We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history.

Northrop Grumman's Aeronautics Systems – Research & Advanced Design (R&AD) transforms breakthrough ideas into mission-ready capabilities through intelligent anticipation. We're the front-end design engine, defining what comes next. From developing cutting-edge next-generation future aircraft to trailblazing collaborative autonomous platforms, we push the boundaries of technology and forge industry-leading partnerships that set new standards for what's possible.

Our team owns the full lifecycle of advanced concept creation, from visionary early-stage designs and rapid prototyping to high-impact demonstrations and solving the toughest technical challenges in survivability, autonomy, and battle management. We seek curious, adaptable people who thrive on turning intuition into breakthrough solutions. If you're driven to invent the future, build what's next, and shape the landscape of national security, this is where you belong.

Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems has an opening for a Principal or Senior Principal Guidance Navigation Controls Engineer to join our team in our South Bay Vehicle Engineering organization. This position can be filled at El Segundo, CA or Rancho Bernardo, CA.

The selected candidate should thrive in a fast-paced work environment with high expectations and collaborative/team settings across all levels. This is a dynamic organization involved in deploying forward-leaning avionics, guidance, navigation, and control systems for developmental concepts for air vehicles, weapons, and many more platforms.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support research and development of flight control algorithms for manned and unmanned air vehicles.
• Design, develop, implement, verify, and test algorithms, software, and simulation tools to perform guidance, navigation and control (GNC) of autonomous unmanned aircraft.
• Develop control laws to meet air vehicle performance, flying qualities, and stability margin requirements, both on ground and in flight.
• Design outer and inner loop control laws, and associated logic and autonomy functions.
• Develop air vehicle system linear and non-linear dynamic simulation models and integrate models into software and hardware-in-the-loop simulation environments.
• Perform performance and flying qualities analysis.
• Support non-linear simulation and hardware-in-the-loop lab testing.
• Support flight test activities and analyze air vehicle flight test data.
• Develop analysis to support design reviews at different stages in a development program, such as PDR, CDR, etc.

This position can be filled at either the Principal GNC Engineer level or the Senior Principal GNC Engineer level, depending upon the qualifications below.

Basic Qualifications for Principal GNC Engineer:

• Bachelor's degree in a related Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) discipline with 5 years of relevant, professional engineering experience; OR Master's degree in a related STEM discipline with 3 years of relevant, professional engineering experience; OR a PhD in a related STEM discipline with 1 year of relevant, professional engineering experience.
• Experience with fixed-wing aircraft flight dynamics.
• Experience using linear control principles and tools to design feedback control systems.
• Experience analyzing non-linear simulations of aircraft…