Senior GNC Engineer

Advanced Reentry Technologies

Who We Are:

Inversion is an aerospace and defense company pioneering advanced reentry technology to enable next-generation capabilities from space. By combining high-performance materials, precision aerodynamics, and mission-driven autonomy, Inversion is transforming reentry into an operational capability for an entirely new class of missions.

The company’s highly maneuverable reentry spacecraft, Arc, is designed for rapid global cargo delivery, hypersonic testing, and other national security missions that require precise, controlled flight through the atmosphere. Arc creates an entirely new transportation domain, unlocking unprecedented speed and global reach.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Inversion designs, manufactures, and integrates its spacecraft under one roof, enabling the company to move rapidly from concept to flight. The company is backed by leading investors including Y Combinator, Spark Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures, with customers across the U.S. government and commercial space industry.

Position Overview:

High-performance maneuvering demands an extremely responsive airframe and control system. As the Senior GNC Engineer (Controls), you will be part of the team that develops high fidelity plant models describing Inversion’s reentry vehicles and you own the development of the flight control system that allows our vehicles to track aggressive guidance commands quickly and crisply. In this role, you will:

• Develop plant models of the vehicle and its subsystems aerodynamics, actuators, sensors, and structural dynamics at the fidelity needed for control design and verification

• Design and analyze high-rate flight control loops that stabilize a statically unstable airframe across the flight envelope

• Deliver the autopilot bandwidth and command tracking needed to respond quickly to real-time guidance commands

• Quantify and manage stability margins in the presence of sample rate, latency, actuator dynamics, and structural mode constraints

• Integrate and exercise control designs in 3-DOF and 6-DOF flight simulations, including Monte Carlo robustness assessment across dispersed conditions

• Carry control algorithms through implementation in real-time flight software and hardware-in-the-loop testing

• Work closely with the guidance, aerodynamics, structures, and avionics teams to close vehicle-level performance

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience

• Typically, 5+ years of applicable experience designing and testing control systems for aerospace vehicles

• Experience building plant models of aerospace systems, including aerodynamic, actuator, and sensor dynamics and controlling open-loop unstable systems

• Experience with high-rate digital control design, including discretization, sample rate selection, and the management of latency and computational delay

• Experience developing and exercising 3-DOF and 6-DOF flight simulations

• Strong fundamentals in classical and modern control theory, including frequency-domain loop shaping, stability margin analysis, and state-space methods

• Proficiency with MATLAB/Simulink and programming languages such as Python or C++

• Demonstrated excellent verbal and written communication skills

• Capable of working in a dynamic, fast-paced startup environment

• Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Secret/Top Secret security clearance.

Desired Qualifications:

• Master's or PhD in Aerospace Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience

• Experience with autopilot design for reentry, hypersonic, missile, or other high-dynamic-pressure flight systems

• Experience applying frequency-domain loop shaping to flight control design, including the construction of phase and gain budgets and the management of two-sided stability margins for conditionally stable systems

• Experience modeling actuator nonlinearities, including rate and position limits, and their effect on stability of unstable plants

• Experience with flexible-body dynamics and aeroservoelastic effects, including structural mode filtering

• Experience with system identification and control-relevant model updates from ground or flight test data

• Experience implementing control algorithms in real-time flight software on embedded hardware

• Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) test experience

• Prior experience working in startups and/or small independent teams

Our office headquarters is located in Playa Vista, CA. This position requires in office presence.

The California annual base salary for this role is currently $139,000-$201,000.  Pay Grades are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data.  Individual pay will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: interviews and an assessment of several factors that are unique to each candidate, job-related skills, relevant education and experience, certifications, abilities of the candidate and internal equity. 

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ITAR Compliance:

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Inversion provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, veteran status, or disability.

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