Principal Controls Engineer

Mach Industries • Huntington Beach, CA

69d

About The Position

Mach Industries is a rapidly growing defense technology company focused on developing next-generation autonomous defense platforms. The role involves owning the control architecture for Mach's fixed-wing aircraft, leading the design, implementation, and validation of flight-critical control laws spanning takeoff to landing, delivering robust performance across the full envelope.

Requirements

• Education: Bachelors in Engineering, Physics, Mathematics.
• Experience: 8+ years designing and fielding flight control systems for fixed-wing aircraft or high-performance UAVs, including flight test.
• Deep knowledge of flight dynamics, stability/controllability, and actuator/sensor modeling.
• Proficiency in modern C++ for embedded real-time implementations; strong MATLAB/Python for modeling, ID, and analysis.
• Demonstrated ownership of verification workflows (SIL/HIL), requirements traceability, and safety reviews.
• Familiarity with modern software workflows (git, code review, issue tracking) and data/telemetry analysis.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with energy-based control, autothrottle, sideslip/yaw coordination, and advanced control allocation for over-actuated systems.
• Experience integrating with PX4 and ROS 2. Exposure to DO-178C/DO-331/ARP4754A processes or equivalent rigor.
• Comfort optimizing for resource-constrained processors and hard real-time constraints (latency/jitter budgets, numerics).

Responsibilities

• Define control system architecture and requirements for fixed-wing vehicles (primary flight control, envelope protection, autothrottle/energy management, and mode logic).
• Design and implement control laws accounting for actuator limits, time delays, and sensor noise.
• Lead system identification and aerodynamic model development from wind-tunnel, CFD, and flight-test data; build accurate linearizations.
• Develop fault-tolerant and reconfiguration strategies (sensor/actuator FDI, control allocation, redundancy management) with graceful degradation.
• Own verification & validation: SIL/HIL campaigns, Monte Carlo, and flight-readiness criteria; establish performance dashboards.
• Drive flight-test planning and execution; analyze logs, tune controllers, and iterate safely and quickly.
• Mentor the controls team, set technical standards, conduct design/code reviews, and influence roadmap and milestones.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Retirement plans
• Opportunities for professional development

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Industry: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees