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Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer

Wardstone · Los Angeles, CA, US · On-site

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About Wardstone

The Modular Interceptor Platform. Backed by Y Combinator.

About the role

We are looking for a Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer to build and own the entire guidance, navigation, and control stack for Wardstone’s interceptors. You will design the necessary development tools and flight control algorithms to ensure that Wardstone’s interceptors hit their target. This is a highly cross-functional role. You will work closely with sensing, actuation, and propulsion engineers to deliver a performant autopilot.

What they're looking for

  • B.S. or M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Controls, or similar
  • Deep understanding of classical and modern control theory
  • Experience building 6DOF flight simulations (MATLAB, Simulink, Python, C++)
  • Strong background in state estimation, nonlinear dynamics, filtering, or guidance algorithms
  • Hands-on experience tuning controllers for UAVs, rockets, missiles, or autonomous systems
  • Familiarity with coordinate frames, quaternion math, and navigation transformations
More about this role

We are looking for a Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer to build and own the entire guidance, navigation, and control stack for Wardstone’s interceptors. You will design the necessary development tools and flight control algorithms to ensure that Wardstone’s interceptors hit their target.

This is a highly cross-functional role. You will work closely with sensing, actuation, and propulsion engineers to deliver a performant autopilot.

  • Design guidance laws for midcourse and terminal homing under high-speed, non-linear dynamics.
  • Implement proportional navigation, augmented PN, pursuit/lead guidance, and/or optimal control methods.
  • Develop intercept prediction algorithms using sensed tracking and state estimation inputs.
  • Design and tune control loops for aerodynamic surfaces, thrust vectoring, or impulse-based actuators.
  • Model actuator bandwidth, latency, saturation, and uncertainties.
  • Implement robust control strategies for high-G, high-rate maneuvers.
  • Implement EKFs/UKFs for fusing IR sensor data, IMU, GPS, and onboard timing signals.
  • Build prediction and filtering pipelines that operate reliably under noise, jitter, and thermal effects.
  • Develop relative...

Read the full posting on Wardstone's site ↗

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