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Guidance, Navigation, Controls (GNC) Engineer
Posted: 06/29/2026
Employment Type:
Direct Hire
Job Number: 32045
Job Location: Hybrid
Industry: DEF - Defense and Military
Job Description
Position Title: GNC Engineer
Position Description: Protingent Staffing has an exciting direct-hire GNC Engineer opportunity.
Job Responsibilities:
Job Qualifications:
Preferred Job Qualifications:
Job Details:
About Protingent: Protingent is a niche provider of top Engineering and IT talent to Software, Electronics, Medical Device, Telecom, and Aerospace companies nationwide. Protingent exists to make a positive impact and contribution to the lives of others as well as our community by providing relevant, rewarding, and exciting work opportunities for our candidates.
Position Description: Protingent Staffing has an exciting direct-hire GNC Engineer opportunity.
Job Responsibilities:
- Work on a team to develop, modify and tune guidance and control systems for fixed wing aircraft
- Work on a team to develop, modify and tune navigation systems based on sensor fusion of 6-DOF IMU, magnetometer, GNSS, pressure and ranging sensors
- Work on a team to develop and modify 6-DOF and Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation environments
- Simulation, analysis, control, and testing on 6 degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) motion platform for development and validation of autonomous UAS
- Work on a team to design and develop flight or mission-critical onboard software for unmanned systems
- Aid development for unmanned aerospace includes guidance, navigation & control, mission sequencing, payload control, redundancy and contingency management, uplink and downlink packet encoding and decoding, converting between different serial protocols, hardware-in-the-loop simulation, ground-based GUIs, and aircraft subsystem control (i.e., payload, electrical systems)
- Embedded Software development (C/C++, Python, shell scripts)
- Writing/modifying software to adjust flight behaviors
- Use development tools such as: JIRA, git, C/C++, CMake, Linux, MATLAB
- Collaborate with a multi-disciplinary software team on large, multi-language projects
- Participating in code reviews, Flight Testing, and Customer Presentations
- Bench test, Hardware-in-the-loop, and field testing of UAS platforms
- Local, interstate, and international travel to support field testing and customer demonstrations.
- Expected travel is ~10-25%.
- Collaborate with other engineering disciplines (Systems, Software, Mechanical, Electrical) in planning, design and development of systems to ensure software and hardware performance and compatibility
- Design software architecture, interfaces, and gateways for communication with external Autonomy software services. Implement functionality using a model-based approach.
- Software verification and validation including writing Test Cases and Test Procedures
- Develop, implement, and document data and software application test plans to validate project deliverables meet quality standards
- Oversee and support processes and procedures for existing data and reporting activities to support internal and external customer deliverables.
- Examples of specific deliverables include but are not limited to: recurring reports and analyses; data validation and documentation
- Interface and derive solutions in coordination with hardware design teams
Job Qualifications:
- BS degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Computer, Aerospace, Controls engineering or other relevant discipline, plus at minimum 5 years of experience in a professional environment developing MATLAB / Simulink control systems with auto code experience; or MS in Controls or Aerospace Engineering plus 2 years’ experience. Embedded code experience preferred.
- US Citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a DoD Security Clearance
- Experience in developing physics based 6 DOF simulations, motion platforms.
- Experience developing with: Gazebo or similar simulation tools, Matlab, MATLAB/Simulink, C, C++, Python
- Experience developing scripts to run batch processes
- Experience in data post processing from simulation or flight testing, report summary writing
- Experience developing guidance and autonomy algorithms required; in denied environments preferred.
Preferred Job Qualifications:
- Minimum two years of demonstrated, hands-on professional experience in at least one (ideally a combination) of the following areas:
- Model-based design and/or test using the Simulink/Stateflow tool chain.
- Software development in a relevant subject matter area: Aircraft Guidance Navigation & Control or other robotic system guidance, navigation and control; ground- or airborne mission systems; general aerospace flight control or cockpit. avionics systems; ground stations; payload control.
- Development/operations of hardware-in-the-loop simulators, conducting testing and troubleshooting of HW/SW interfaces.
- Familiarity with software configuration management tools, version control systems, defect tracking tools, and peer review required.
Job Details:
- Job Type: Direct Hire
- Salary Rate Range: $175,000-$200,000.
- Location: Arlington, VA (Hybrid, 3 Days onsite).
- Required US Citizenship - May be required to obtain and maintain a a U.S. security clearance at the appropriate level.
About Protingent: Protingent is a niche provider of top Engineering and IT talent to Software, Electronics, Medical Device, Telecom, and Aerospace companies nationwide. Protingent exists to make a positive impact and contribution to the lives of others as well as our community by providing relevant, rewarding, and exciting work opportunities for our candidates.
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