Senior Staff GNC Engineer - Flight Controls

Pivotal•Palo Alto, CA

11d•Onsite

About The Position

Pivotal is hiring a Senior Staff GNC Engineer to serve as the technical and team lead for flight controls across its aircraft programs, including the Helix family. The role sets the long-term direction for aircraft control and for the team’s development, verification, and qualification of control laws. It is accountable for the technical approach to flight controls, including control-law architecture, redundancy, failure accommodation, simulation, tools, and verification processes. The position leads the flight controls team, oversees work across programs, mentors engineers, shapes aircraft-level decisions with program leadership, and represents flight controls to systems engineering, safety, certification, flight test, customers, partners, and regulators. The engineer is expected to remain hands-on with challenging technical problems and to coordinate with navigation, autonomy, firmware, aeromechanical, and flight test teams. Pivotal designs, develops, and manufactures light eVTOL aircraft, including the BlackFly and Helix. Applicants must be eligible to work in the United States and willing to work onsite at the company’s Palo Alto, California headquarters. The stated annual salary range is AMD 240,000–AMD 280,000. Pivotal offers medical, dental, vision, and 401(k) plans.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
At least 12 years of industry experience in flight controls or GNC with a bachelor’s degree, 8+ years with a master’s degree, or 5+ years with a PhD, or equivalent experience.
Experience as the technical lead for flight-control law development on at least one aircraft, from early design through flight test.
Expert knowledge of aircraft flight dynamics and classical, modern, and robust control methods.
Deep experience with multi-loop flight-control architectures, control allocation, envelope protection, and failure accommodation.
Experience with frequency-domain analysis and system identification of aircraft or rotorcraft, and using flight-test data to improve models and control laws.
Experience defining verification strategies for safety-critical flight-control systems, from simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing through flight test.
Track record of leading engineering teams and technical leadership across teams, including mentoring senior engineers and influencing leadership decisions.
Proficiency in MATLAB and Simulink, and ability to review flight software in C or C++.
Excellent communication skills, including explaining complex technical trade-offs to executives, customers, and non-specialists.
Eligibility for employment in the United States and willingness to work onsite at the Palo Alto, California headquarters.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or PhD in Aerospace Engineering or a related field, focused on flight dynamics or flight controls.
Experience with eVTOL, tiltrotor, rotorcraft, or other VTOL aircraft, including control through the transition between hover and forward flight.
Experience taking a flight-control system through certification or airworthiness approval with the FAA, EASA, or a military authority, including DO-178C, DO-331, ARP4754A, and ARP4761.
Experience using CONDUIT and CIFER.
Experience with handling-qualities specifications and evaluations such as ADS-33, MIL-DTL-32742, and MIL-STD-1797, including piloted simulation evaluations.
Experience developing flight controls for both piloted and autonomous aircraft.
Experience building or leading a flight-controls team.
Experience scaling model-based design, simulation infrastructure, and automated testing using Git, continuous integration, and agile development workflows.
Experience using AI-assisted development tools, such as Claude, for algorithm development, coding, and data analysis.
Piloting or RC piloting experience, or a strong interest in aviation.

Responsibilities

Set the long-term technical direction for flight controls across aircraft programs, including control-law architecture, operating modes, redundancy, and failure accommodation.
Make or guide final technical decisions on major flight-control design choices and trade-offs, and document the rationale.
Shape aircraft-level decisions affecting flight controls, including actuator and sensor selection, redundancy, flight-computer architecture, and aircraft configuration.
Remain hands-on with challenging technical problems such as transition, envelope protection, and failure accommodation.
Define the team’s practices for developing and verifying flight-control laws, including model-based design, simulation and test infrastructure, and automated verification.
Lead the flight-controls assurance and certification approach with systems engineering, safety, and certification teams, including means of compliance and DO-178C, DO-331, and ARP4754A objectives.
Review flight readiness for significant control-law changes and flight-envelope expansion.
Lead the flight-controls team, set technical priorities, oversee work across programs, mentor engineers, and help shape hiring and team growth.
Represent flight controls to company leadership, customers, partners, and regulators.
Coordinate flight-controls work with navigation, autonomy, firmware, aeromechanical, and flight test teams.
Lead flight-control law development from early design through flight test and provide technical leadership across teams.