Senior Principal Engineer, GNC & State Estimation (R6233)
Shield AI · San Diego, California
Posted October 9, 2026
Job Description
Job Description:
As a Senior Principal Engineer, you will establish and lead the technical direction of Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) and State Estimation within Hivemind Enterprise (HME). You will build the team and capabilities that enable customers to develop, integrate, validate, and deploy reliable autonomy across aircraft platforms.
You will bring at least 15 years of GNC domain experience, deep expertise in aircraft dynamics, flight controls, navigation, and state estimation, and a demonstrated record of delivering production autopilot or flight-control software. As a hands-on technical leader, you will develop algorithms, contribute production software, guide critical engineering decisions, and establish a fast, rigorous development cycle spanning simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and flight testing.
Working with stakeholders across Hivemind Enterprise, Hivemind Solutions, and Shield AI’s aircraft organizations, you will define HME’s GNC and State Estimation technical roadmap and translate it into reusable platform capabilities and customer deliverables. You will help drive our Runtime Assurance (RTA) solution and deliver the required capabilities that will help our customers develop the technical evidence needed to support airworthiness of their platforms.
This role combines senior individual-contributor leadership with the opportunity to establish a new engineering team. You will attract and mentor exceptional engineers and build trusted relationships with GNC and State Estimation leaders throughout Shield AI.
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