GNC Engineer

Valinor Enterprises, Inc.•New York, NY

About The Position

Valinor Condor is building the next generation of autonomous VTOL aircraft for defense and enterprise applications. We're a small, technical team moving fast — our vehicle is flying, our customers are real, and the work spans simulation to real life. We're seeking a Flight Controls & GNC Engineer to own the guidance, navigation, and control stack on our VTOL platform. This is a senior individual contributor role with direct ownership of flight performance — from control law architecture to day-of-demo parameter tuning. You'll work closely with the Chief Engineer and a small cross-functional team. You'll be our technical authority on everything from transition logic and rate controller design to aero model development and stability analysis.

Requirements

5+ years of hands-on flight controls or GNC engineering experience on real flying hardware
Deep familiarity with PX4 (or comparable open-source autopilot) — you've tuned it, debugged it, and modified it, not just configured it
Experience with VTOL, tailsitter, or fixed-wing platforms
Ability to read and interpret flight logs to diagnose control system issues (PX4 log analysis, ulog/PlotJuggler)
Familiarity with aerodynamic modeling pipelines (CFD output → stability derivatives → flight dynamics model)
Strong fundamentals: classical and modern control theory, rigid body dynamics, state estimation
Comfortable in the field — you've executed flight tests, not just designed them on paper
Eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Nice To Haves

Experience with TECS, NPFG, or L1 guidance implementations
Exposure to EKF-based state estimators (GPS/IMU/baro fusion)
Experience with MAVLink or similar UAV communication protocols
Scripting ability in Python for log analysis, simulation, and tooling; MATLAB/Simulink experience for control design and 6DOF modeling is equally valued
Familiarity with NDAA compliance requirements for UAS hardware
Experience supporting operational customer demonstrations or field deployments
Active clearance preferred

Responsibilities

Own the full GNC stack on our PX4-based tailsitter: PX4 code, VTOL transition logic, fixed-wing control laws (TECS, NPFG, attitude/rate loops), multicopter controller
Design, implement, and iterate on control laws; translate theoretical controller designs into flight-validated parameters
Conduct structured flight test campaigns — define test cards, instrument logging, execute in-field, and close the loop with data-driven analysis
Debug flight anomalies from logs: identify root cause across sensor, estimator, controller, and actuator layers
Build and maintain the flight dynamics model; extract and validate aerodynamic coefficients from flight data and CFD outputs
Write technically precise scopes of work for CFD contractors; review and integrate their outputs into the aero model
Develop and maintain a Simulink-based 6DOF simulation environment for control law prototyping, linearization, and stability margin analysis — de-risking parameter changes before they go to hardware
Work with the software team on autopilot integration, sensor fusion, and estimator configuration (EKF tuning, IMU/GPS/baro)
Support customer demonstrations — ensure the vehicle performs reliably and gracefully under operational conditions