Director, Guidance Navigation & Control

Key Responsibilities

• Set the long-term technical vision, strategy, and roadmap for GNC capabilities, tools, processes, and team development.
• Own system-level architecture decisions for guidance, navigation, control, simulation, validation, and autonomy-related functions.
• Lead the GNC team by owning team structure, hiring plans, and team development.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for GNC, providing direction on trade studies, requirements, interfaces, performance targets, and risk management.
• Establish engineering standards, review practices, modeling and simulation expectations, verification methods, and certification or compliance approaches.
• Mentor and develop senior engineers and technical leads, raising the overall technical bar of the organization.
• Drive make-versus-buy decisions, provide technical oversight of suppliers, and manage external partnerships related to GNC/RPO technologies.
• Represent GNC technical direction and program status in executive reviews, customer discussions, design reviews, and major decision forums.

Requirements

• Minimum 10 years of experience in roles related to guidance, navigation, and control engineering, with progressive growth from hands-on technical execution to senior technical leadership, architecture ownership, and strategic decision-making.
• Expertise implementing GNC algorithms as production flight code (C/C++) and ground analysis tools (Python/MATLAB).
• Extensive experience leading GNC engineering teams for complex aerospace, robotics, autonomous systems, defense, space, aviation, or similar platforms.
• Proven experience supporting satellite bus operations, providing support for GNC-related activities and resolving on-orbit anomalies.
• Demonstrated ownership of GNC architecture, technology roadmaps, and system-level technical direction across multiple programs or product generations.
• Deep expertise in control theory, estimation/navigation, flight dynamics, guidance algorithms, modeling and simulation, and verification and validation.
• Proven ability to influence executive stakeholders, manage technical risk, and make high-impact decisions under uncertainty.
• Experience building, mentoring, and scaling high-performing engineering teams.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical topics into clear strategic recommendations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct spacecraft GNC experience in SDA, autonomous navigation, rendezvous safety, maneuver planning, or proximity operations.