About Mach Industries

Founded in 2023, Mach Industries is a rapidly growing defense technology company focused on developing next-generation autonomous defense platforms. At the core of our mission is the commitment to delivering scalable, decentralized defense systems that enhance the strategic capabilities of the United States and its allies. With a workforce of approximately 350 employees, we operate with startup agility and ambition.

Our vision is to redefine the future of warfare through cutting-edge manufacturing, innovation at speed, and unwavering focus on national security. We are dedicated to solving the next generation of warfare with lethal systems that deter kinetic conflict and protect global security.

The Role

Mach Industries is seeking a GNC Engineer, Navigation to help develop, implement, and test navigation systems for autonomous aircraft and related defense platforms. You will contribute across state estimation, inertial navigation, sensor modeling, simulation, embedded implementation, hardware integration, and flight-test analysis.

This is a hands-on engineering role for someone building depth in navigation and estimation while delivering real vehicle capability. You will work with experienced GNC engineers to turn requirements into algorithms and analyses, characterize sensor behavior, investigate system performance, and build evidence that navigation functions operate reliably.

The ideal candidate has strong engineering fundamentals, enjoys solving problems with models and data, and is motivated to learn quickly. You approach work carefully, communicate assumptions and results clearly, seek feedback early, and take increasing ownership as your technical judgment develops.

Key Responsibilities

Navigation Algorithm Development

Support the design, implementation, tuning, and verification of navigation functions such as strapdown inertial navigation, state estimation, Kalman filtering, sensor fusion, alignment, calibration, measurement handling, and fault detection.
Translate defined vehicle objectives into analysis tasks, navigation performance metrics, simulation cases, and verification evidence with guidance from senior engineers.
Develop and evaluate propagation and measurement models, coordinate-frame transformations, initialization logic, and nominal or degraded sensor behavior.
Analyze the effects of sensor noise, bias, drift, scale factors, misalignment, lever arms, timing errors, latency, environmental conditions, and vehicle dynamics.
Evaluate estimator convergence, consistency, numerical behavior, residuals, and recovery across representative trajectories and sensor conditions.
Document methods, assumptions, results, limitations, and recommendations in a clear and reproducible form.

Sensor Modeling and Characterization

Support the evaluation and integration of IMUs, GNSS receivers, magnetometers, barometers, air-data sensors, cameras, radar, and other aiding sources as applicable.
Analyze recorded sensor data to characterize noise, bias, repeatability, drift, latency, synchronization, thermal behavior, and other relevant error sources.
Develop sensor error models for simulation using test data and appropriate statistical methods.
Support stationary, dynamic, thermal, vibration, and environmental tests, including test setup, data collection, analysis, and reporting.
Contribute to sensor trade studies and calibration or acceptance-test activities using defined requirements and evaluation criteria.
Work with Avionics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Embedded Software, and Test to resolve installation, timing, data-quality, and interface issues.

Simulation, Software, and Verification

Develop and maintain navigation simulations, sensor models, trajectory cases, fault scenarios, and truth-data interfaces.
Build and run Monte Carlo analyses, parameter sweeps, covariance analyses, sensitivity studies, and requirements-based tests.
Implement, test, and review navigation algorithms in MATLAB/Simulink, Python, C, or modern C++ as appropriate.