Staff Engineer, Flight Controls - X-BAT (R4813)

In this role, you will contribute to the flight control system for XBAT, with responsibility for delivering stable, predictable, and operationally robust performance across all phases of flight, including vertical takeoff, hover, transition out-bound, wing-borne flight, transition in-bound, and precision recovery.

6+ years of experience in flight controls / GNC on real flight vehicles, with demonstrated contributions from design through test.

Experience performing one or more of the following technical flight control assignments:

Vehicle Modeling and Simulation:

Demonstrated experience implementing time-accurate mathematical models of the vehicle aerodynamics, mass properties, fuel system, propulsion system, sensors, actuators into a 6DOF simulation environment.

Control Law Design:

Demonstrated experience designing inner and outer loop control laws for fixed-wing aircraft using classical or modern control techniques.

Control Allocation:

Demonstrated experience designing control allocation algorithms for over-actuated systems handling actuator saturation, rate limits, failures and degradation.

Guidance and Autonomy Integration:

Demonstrated experience designing and testing real-time trajectory generation algorithms.

Verification and Validation:

Demonstrated experience executing linear, nonlinear, and Monte Carlo Analyses in a 6DOF simulation environment.

Demonstrated experience executing sensitivity studies, worst-case disturbance analysis, and/or failure detection and accommodation studies validating control robustness against requirements.

Demonstrated experience characterizing aircraft flying qualities against tailored MIL-HDBK-516 Section 6 requirements within a high-fidelity 6DOF Simulation framework.

Demonstrated experience in generating flight control and simulation data artifacts for Airworthiness Certification (Simulation Description Document, Flying Qualities Report).

Flight Test Support:

Demonstrated experience in test planning, envelope expansion strategy, and test point selection.

Post-Flight Analysis:

Demonstrated experience analyzing flight data, comparing predicted vs actual behavior, performing system identification and model refinement tasks, and implementing control design or simulation model updates.

Strong background in aircraft flight dynamics and 6DOF simulation

Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to mentor and up-skill junior engineers.

Proficiency in C++, MATLAB/Simulink, and/or Python.

Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Autonomous systems or missile/UAV GNC background

Familiarity with:

Sensor and air data systems

CI/CD pipelines and modern DevSecOps practices

Experience integrating NPSS propulsion models (transient and steady state) into a 6DOF simulation environment.

Experience with HIL or integrated simulation/test environments and Linux-based development workflows (Git, etc.)

Experience operating in rapid development environments with tight iteration loops between simulation and test

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Full-time regular employee offer package:

Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity

 

Temporary employee offer package:

Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

 

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

 

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