# Senior Principal Engineer, GNC & State Estimation (R6233) at Shield AI

- Company: Shield AI
- What the company does: Autonomy for the world. Backed by a16z.
- Company website: https://shield.ai
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Principal and up
- Location: San Diego, California
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $260K to $390K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-10-09
- Apply by: 2026-11-23
- Apply: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/58b3440f-229c-4aad-9535-47419660931c?utm_source=1752vc&utm_medium=careers
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/shield-ai-senior-principal-engineer-gnc-and-state-estimation-r6233/

## About the role

As a Senior Principal Engineer, you will establish and lead the technical direction of Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) and State Estimation within Hivemind Enterprise (HME). You will build the team and capabilities that enable customers to develop, integrate, validate, and deploy reliable autonomy across aircraft platforms. Found on 1752vc Careers, the job board for startup and VC roles.

## What they're looking for

- At least 15 years of professional experience in GNC, including substantial hands-on development of aircraft flight controls, autopilot capabilities, navigation, and state estimation
- Expert knowledge of aircraft dynamics, stability and control, guidance, and estimation, with demonstrated ability to apply that knowledge to practical flight systems
- Deep experience with state estimation and sensor fusion, including inertial navigation, Kalman or nonlinear filtering, sensor characterization, and evaluation of estimation accuracy, consistency, and robustness
- Significant experience as a technical lead, Principal Engineer, chief engineer, or equivalent, with ownership of complex technical decisions and influence across multiple engineering teams
- Demonstrated ability to recruit, mentor, and develop strong technical talent, including experience establishing a new engineering capability or building and growing a specialist team
- Strong current proficiency in C++ for production, real-time software, together with MATLAB/Simulink or equivalent modeling tools and Python or comparable analysis and automation tools

Tags: Engineering

Source: 1752vc Careers, https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/shield-ai-senior-principal-engineer-gnc-and-state-estimation-r6233/