GNC Engineer

Location: El Segundo

Department: Engineering

Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the Forgotten Frontier and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere.

Mission

Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.

Levels

We are hiring at Level I, Level II, and Level III through this posting. Your level will be determined during the interview process based on your technical skills, relevant experience, and demonstrated scope of ownership.

What you’ll do

• Design, implement, and fly guidance, navigation, and control systems for long-endurance stratospheric aircraft
• Own the GNC stack end to end: modeling, simulation, control law design, estimation, tuning, validation, and flight test
• Develop and maintain vehicle dynamics models and simulation environments
• Design and tune controllers for launch, climb, station-keeping, loiter, descent, and recovery
• Integrate GNC tightly with avionics, sensors, propulsion, and autonomy software
• Debug and iterate rapidly using flight data, hardware-in-the-loop, and field testing
• Support integration, production bring-up, and flight operations in the desert

What we’re looking for

• 1+ years working on real GNC systems for aircraft, UAVs, spacecraft, or similarly complex dynamic systems
• Strong fundamentals in dynamics, controls, estimation, and linear systems
• Familiarity with state estimation (EKF/UKF), sensor fusion, and inertial navigation
• Experience designing and tuning control systems that fly on real vehicles
• Comfortable working from first principles and validating with test and flight data
• Ability to move fast, own outcomes, and troubleshoot in the field

Our culture = elite sports team. Winning = having fun

1. Hyperfocus
2. Extreme Ownership
3. Radical Transparency

Why Icarus

1. Meaningful equity
2. Top market salary and bonuses
3. Health, dental, and vision insurance
4. Factory in El Segundo
5. Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
6. Small team, massive responsibility
7. High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
8. Dream desk setup
9. Daily lunch
10. Unlimited celsius

This is not a normal engineering job

1. We are pioneers, not corporate managers. Icarus deliberately optimizes for a high signal (engineers) to noise (management) ratio, where engineering, flight, and execution matter more than process, politics, or management overhead
2. You will work side by side with the CEO and a small team of world-class builders. You will own your subsystem end to end. Design it. Build it. Break it. Fix it. Validate it in the desert. Fly it. Then do it again, faster
3. We expect full extreme ownership. This is a high-trust, no-BS team, and everyone pulls their weight
4. We are hiring across the stack: mechanical, aerodynamics, RF, GNC, electrical, avionics, power electronics, energy storage, software, and systems
5. We want builders. No hand-holding. No fluff. No fake projects. No slide decks. No sitting in meetings all day. Just raw engineering, real hardware, and real flight
6. You must thrive under pressure, learn fast, troubleshoot in the field, and push hardware to its limits. We move fast. We go to Mojave at 4 am in the morning. We expect results and an obsession with quality and speed
7. You will be a core executor of flight systems, taking them from concept to reality and driving rapid iteration loops. You will work across design, integration, testing, and flight. If you want real ownership, real hardware, and real flight milestones, this is it.

No tourists. No bystanders. Only builders.

Hiring process

1. Technical interview
2. One-on-one with CEO
3. Meet the team in-person

US salary range

• Level I: $100,000 - $140,000 USD per year
• Level II: $140,000 - $180,000 USD per year
• Level III: $180,000 - $220,000 USD per year

These ranges reflect annual base salary. Final level and base salary will be determined individually based on relevant skills, experience, and the scope of responsibility.

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are considered part of Icarus' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.