Senior GNC Engineer Verified today

Inversion Space · Playa Vista, CA · Space Systems · first seen 2026-07-16

About Inversion Space

Inversion builds advanced reentry systems to deliver payloads anywhere on Earth in under an hour. The mission is to turn Low-Earth Orbit into an on-demand logistics domain, operating through extreme reentry conditions and landing with high precision.

What You'll Do

As Senior GNC Engineer (Controls), you own development of the flight control system that allows reentry vehicles to track aggressive guidance commands quickly and crisply across high-performance maneuvering flight.

Develop plant models of the vehicle and its subsystems, including aerodynamics, actuators, sensors, and structural dynamics at fidelity needed for control design and verification
Design and analyze high-rate flight control loops that stabilize a statically unstable airframe across the flight envelope
Deliver the autopilot bandwidth and command tracking needed to respond quickly to real-time guidance commands
Quantify and manage stability margins in the presence of sample rate, latency, actuator dynamics, and structural mode constraints
Integrate and exercise control designs in 3-DOF and 6-DOF flight simulations, including Monte Carlo robustness assessment across dispersed conditions
Carry control algorithms through implementation in real-time flight software and hardware-in-the-loop testing
Work closely with the guidance, aerodynamics, structures, and avionics teams to close vehicle-level performance

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience
Typically 5+ years of applicable experience designing and testing control systems for aerospace vehicles
Experience building plant models of aerospace systems, including aerodynamic, actuator, and sensor dynamics and controlling open-loop unstable systems
Experience with high-rate digital control design, including discretization, sample rate selection, and the management of latency and computational delay
Experience developing and exercising 3-DOF and 6-DOF flight simulations
Strong fundamentals in classical and modern control theory, including frequency-domain loop shaping, stability margin analysis, and state-space methods
Proficiency with MATLAB/Simulink and programming languages such as Python or C++
Demonstrated excellent verbal and written communication skills
Capable of working in a dynamic, fast-paced startup environment
Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Secret/Top Secret security clearance