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Flight Controls Engineer (R4815)

Shield AI · Seattle, WA

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Level
Engineer
Team
Controls
Industry
Aerospace & defense
Posted
30+ days ago

The role in 30 seconds

An engineer-level controls role at Shield AI (aerospace & defense) in Seattle, WA. In this role, you will design, implement, and flight-test autonomous shipboard recovery guidance for XBAT, with an emphasis on precision recovery to a moving ship in GPS-degraded and GPS-denied environments.

Tools it names
Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ)

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026

Controls Engineer roles in Washington: typical posted base $100k–$122k.

Median of the low and high ends of 5 live postings that list pay, out of 7 controls engineer openings in Washington, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

Washington plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 762 other live controls postings in the US.

Base pay
Not listed in this posting

Typical $97k–$141k, from 260 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
Not stated

Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • Automation 74%
  • PLC 68%
  • Robotics 42%
  • ✓ Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 27%
  • Root cause 26%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

At a glance

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Controls team at Shield AI

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

This plant: Shield AI in Seattle

16 other open roles at this site.

All 17 roles at Shield AI →
Full description from Shield AIAs posted on their careers site.Show

What you'll do

  • ◆Design and implement ship-relative guidance for approach, station keeping, alignment, and terminal recovery.

Work closely with state estimation and sensing teams to define relative-navigation

requirements

and ensure recovery guidance remains robust to measurement errors, latency, and intermittent sensor availability.

Implement recovery sequencing and contingency logic, including hold, wave-off, go-around, retry, and responses to degraded or lost navigation.

Develop and integrate real-time guidance software in C++, working with flight controls, autonomy, embedded software, and recovery-system teams.

Define recovery performance

requirements

and verify them through 6DOF simulation, Monte Carlo analysis, software-in-the-loop testing, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.

Support test planning, flight readiness assessments, and flight operations. Analyze test data, diagnose performance shortfalls, and drive improvements between tests.

Provide technical direction within the recovery-guidance effort, mentor engineers, and communicate design decisions, limitations, and test results across teams.

Required qualifications

  • ✓Demonstrated hands-on experience designing, implementing, and flight-testing guidance laws for autonomous shipboard recovery, including recovery using relative navigation without GPS/GNSS.

Strong understanding of moving-platform guidance, ship-relative reference frames, deck motion, and terminal position, velocity, and attitude constraints.

Experience integrating guidance with relative-navigation systems and assessing the closed-loop effects of navigation bias, noise, latency, and dropouts.

Strong background in flight dynamics and guidance and control, including the relationship between guidance demands, aircraft tracking bandwidth, and available control authority.

Proficiency in C++ for real-time algorithm implementation and MATLAB/Simulink or Python for algorithm development and analysis.

Experience executing verification and validation through simulation, hardware integration, flight testing, and post-flight analysis.

Demonstrated ability to own a technical capability, resolve problems across subsystem boundaries, and work effectively with navigation, controls, software, and test engineers.

Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Preferred qualifications

Full-scale, at-sea flight-test experience with autonomous shipboard recovery.

VTOL or rotorcraft experience involving precision recovery to constrained or significantly moving landing platforms.

Experience characterizing recovery performance across ship motion, wind over deck, ship airwake , turbulence, and degraded visibility.

Experience integrating vision, infrared, lidar, radar, or cooperative RF sensing into a relative-navigation and recovery system.

Experience supporting ship– aircraft dynamic-interface testing, recovery-envelope development, flight safety, or airworthiness.

Familiarity with Linux-based development, Git, automated testing, and CI/CD workflows.

Ability to obtain S//SAR access.

Show full description ↓

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

Job Description

In this role, you will design, implement, and flight-test autonomous shipboard recovery guidance for XBAT, with an emphasis on precision recovery to a moving ship in GPS-degraded and GPS-denied environments. Working within an established G&C team, you will own recovery guidance algorithms and their integration with relative navigation, flight controls, and recovery hardware.

We are seeking someone with direct experience taking shipboard recovery guidance from algorithm development through implementation and flight testing.

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