# Staff GNC Engineer – Flight Controls at Pivotal

- Company: Pivotal
- What the company does: Backed by Kleiner Perkins.
- Company website: http://www.pivotal.com/
- Type: Startups
- Level: Senior
- Location: Palo Alto, CA
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $200K to $235K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-10-26
- Apply by: 2026-12-10
- Apply: https://jobs.lever.co/pivotal/e1398b0b-16ca-4e65-a7fc-0c701232f3d5?utm_source=1752vc&utm_medium=careers
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/pivotal-staff-gnc-engineer-flight-controls/

## About the role

The GNC team at Pivotal develops the flight control and navigation algorithms that let our aircraft fly safely and precisely, including on the Helix family of aircraft. We are looking for a Staff GNC Engineer to lead flight control law development on an aircraft program: owning the control law architecture and its design, tuning, and verification from simulation through flight test. Found on 1752vc Careers, the job board for startup and VC roles.

## What they're looking for

- Define flight control requirements, including stability, performance, and handling qualities requirements, with the systems engineering and safety teams
- Set the verification strategy for the control laws, including linear analysis, Monte Carlo and worst-case simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and flight test
- Plan, lead, and analyze flight tests with the flight test team, making risk-informed decisions between flights and resolving differences between simulation and flight
- Demonstrated experience taking flight control laws from design through flight test on real aircraft, including owning key design decisions
- Deep understanding of aircraft flight dynamics, including modeling, linearization, and dynamic stability modes
- Strong command of classical and modern control theory, including frequency-domain analysis, state-space methods, and robustness analysis

Tags: General Engineering

Source: 1752vc Careers, https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/pivotal-staff-gnc-engineer-flight-controls/