a16z Flight Controls Engineer (R4815)
Job Description:
In this role, you will design, implement, and flight-test autonomous shipboard recovery guidance for XBAT, with an emphasis on precision recovery to a moving ship in GPS-degraded and GPS-denied environments. Working within an established G&C team, you will own recovery guidance algorithms and their integration with relative navigation, flight controls, and recovery hardware.
We are seeking someone with direct experience taking shipboard recovery guidance from algorithm development through implementation and flight testing.
What you'll do:
- Design and implement ship-relative guidance for approach, station keeping, alignment, and terminal recovery.
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Develop deck-motion compensation and landing-timing strategies that account for navigation uncertainty, aircraft response, control authority, and touchdown or capture constraints.
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Work closely with state estimation and sensing teams to define relative-navigation requirements and ensure recovery guidance remains robust to measurement errors, latency, and intermittent sensor availability.
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Implement recovery sequencing and contingency logic, including hold, wave-off, go-around, retry, and responses to degraded or lost navigation.
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Develop and integrate real-time guidance software in C++, working with flight controls, autonomy, embedded software, and recovery-system teams.
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Define recovery performance requirements and verify them through 6DOF simulation, Monte Carlo analysis, software-in-the-loop testing, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
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Support test planning, flight readiness assessments, and flight operations. Analyze test data, diagnose performance shortfalls, and drive improvements between tests.
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Provide technical direction within the recovery-guidance effort, mentor engineers, and communicate design decisions, limitations, and test results across teams.
Required qualifications:
- Demonstrated hands-on experience designing, implementing, and flight-testing guidance laws for autonomous shipboard recovery, including recovery using relative navigation without GPS/GNSS.
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Strong understanding of moving-platform guidance, ship-relative reference frames, deck motion, and terminal position, velocity, and attitude constraints.
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Experience integrating guidance with relative-navigation systems and assessing the closed-loop effects of navigation bias, noise, latency, and dropouts.
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Strong background in flight dynamics and guidance and control, including the relationship between guidance demands, aircraft tracking bandwidth, and available control authority.
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Proficiency in C++ for real-time algorithm implementation and MATLAB/Simulink or Python for algorithm development and analysis.
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Experience executing verification and validation through simulation, hardware integration, flight testing, and post-flight analysis.
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Demonstrated ability to own a technical capability, resolve problems across subsystem boundaries, and work effectively with navigation, controls, software, and test engineers.
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Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.
Preferred qualifications:
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Full-scale, at-sea flight-test experience with autonomous shipboard recovery.
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VTOL or rotorcraft experience involving precision recovery to constrained or significantly moving landing platforms.
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Experience characterizing recovery performance across ship motion, wind over deck, ship airwake, turbulence, and degraded visibility.
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Experience integrating vision, infrared, lidar, radar, or cooperative RF sensing into a relative-navigation and recovery system.
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Experience supporting ship–aircraft dynamic-interface testing, recovery-envelope development, flight safety, or airworthiness.
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Familiarity with Linux-based development, Git, automated testing, and CI/CD workflows.
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Ability to obtain S//SAR access.
Skills
As published by lever · 20 questions · 9 written answers
Basics
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