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 - Controls to help develop, implement, and test flight-control systems for autonomous aircraft and related defense platforms. You will contribute across modeling, control-law development, simulation, embedded implementation, integration, and flight-test analysis.

This is a hands-on engineering role for someone building depth in flight dynamics and controls while delivering real vehicle capability. You will work with experienced GNC engineers to turn requirements into analyses and software, investigate system behavior, and build evidence that control functions perform 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

Controls Development and Analysis

Support the design, analysis, tuning, and verification of flight-control functions such as stability augmentation, attitude and rate control, trajectory tracking, gain scheduling, control allocation, and mode logic.
Translate defined vehicle objectives into analysis tasks, performance metrics, simulation cases, and verification evidence with guidance from senior engineers.
Evaluate command tracking, disturbance rejection, stability, robustness, saturation behavior, and transient performance across representative operating conditions.
Account for aerodynamic variation, mass-property changes, actuator limits, sensor effects, latency, environmental disturbances, and other real-world constraints in analysis and simulation.
Document methods, assumptions, results, limitations, and recommendations in a clear and reproducible form.

Modeling, Simulation, and Verification

Develop and maintain vehicle, plant, actuator, sensor, and environmental models used for controls development.
Use linear and nonlinear analysis techniques to understand vehicle dynamics and control-system behavior.
Build and run six-degree-of-freedom simulations, Monte Carlo analyses, parameter sweeps, sensitivity studies, and targeted off-nominal cases.
Create requirements-based tests and automated regression checks with clear expected behavior and pass/fail criteria.
Compare simulation predictions with component, ground, and flight-test data; investigate discrepancies and update models with review.
Maintain traceability between input data, model versions, gain sets, software versions, test cases, and reported results.

Software Implementation and Integration

Implement, test, and review controls algorithms in MATLAB/Simulink, Python, C, or modern C++ as appropriate.
Support translation of analysis algorithms into embedded, real-time software while accounting for numerical precision, discretization, timing, initialization, mode transitions, and saturation handling.
Develop unit tests, test vectors, data-replay workflows, and software-in-the-loop or hardware-in-the-loop scenarios.
Work with Guidance, Navigation, Avionics, Embedded Software, Aerodynamics, Mechanical Engineering, Propulsion, and Test to define interfaces and resolve integration issues.
Support actuator characterization and evaluate how authority, bandwidth, rate limits, position limits, latency, and failures affect closed-loop performance.