# Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineer - Ranger (R6391) 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: Mid level
- Location: Seattle, Washington
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $170K to $257K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-10-24
- Apply by: 2026-12-08
- Apply: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/aa149095-c154-47b1-9e22-ff91bb45dfe4?utm_source=1752vc&utm_medium=careers
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/shield-ai-sr-staff-engineer-gnc-r6391/

## About the role

You will build and lead the Guidance & Control (G&C) team for Ranger, a fully autonomous aircraft designed for conventional runway takeoff and landing. You will own the team’s technical direction, development roadmap, and project execution, delivering flight control and flight-autonomy capabilities from requirements and architecture through flight verification. Found on 1752vc Careers, the job board for startup and VC roles.

## What they're looking for

- 10+ years of experience in flight controls, GNC, or autonomous aircraft development, with demonstrated technical ownership of flight-vehicle systems from requirements and design through integration and flight test
- Experience building or leading engineering teams, including establishing technical direction, assigning ownership, mentoring engineers, and delivering complex development efforts through coordinated team execution
- Demonstrated ownership of technical roadmaps and project execution, including work scoping, effort estimation, staffing plans, milestone definition, dependency management, and technical risk reduction
- Deep expertise in aircraft flight dynamics, classical and modern control theory, nonlinear systems, and fixed-wing control law design, including stability, performance, and robustness across the operating envelope
- Strong experience developing or validating high-fidelity 6DOF simulations and using ground- and flight-test data to identify modeling limitations, characterize uncertainty, and improve predictive capability
- Experience defining and executing requirements-based verification strategies, including linear and nonlinear analysis, Monte Carlo studies, integrated testing, and flight-test analysis

Tags: X-BAT Engineering - Software

Source: 1752vc Careers, https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/shield-ai-sr-staff-engineer-gnc-r6391/