Flight Dynamics Engineer - GNC

Job Description

**About Helogen**

Helogen builds space-based manufacturing infrastructure --- autonomous bio-factories in orbit that make advanced materials and drugs impossible to produce on Earth. The company has already launched two satellites, won NASA's TechLeap prize for automation capabilities in space, and is backed by top space investors including RRE, Aurelia, and Mana.

Helogen is a 12-person team at the inflection point where the technology is proven and it is time to scale. Four or more missions are launching this year. This is an opportunity to join early, own something real, and say you built it and launched it.

**The Opportunity**

Helogen is looking for a Flight Dynamics Engineer to own and build the navigation stack, control systems, and mission analysis toolkit from the ground up. You will be the physics expert on the team --- ensuring every vehicle can survive and perform through spaceflight, and helping the broader engineering team understand how design changes ripple through system performance.

The ideal candidate has worked hands-on on actual spaceflight missions --- at SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Inversion, Stoke, Firefly, or on missile defense or hypersonics programs --- and can explain their technical contributions in precise detail. If you thrive in high-cadence environments and want real ownership over flight-critical systems, this is that role.

**What You'll Do**

* • Design, develop, and validate GNC systems including attitude control, guidance logic, and navigation estimation, ensuring vehicles know their position, velocity, and attitude accurately at all times
* • Build high-fidelity flight simulations, sensor models, and mission analysis tools to drive vehicle development decisions and predict landing footprints and vehicle performance
* • Develop and maintain the full navigation and control software stack in Python and higher-order languages as a core part of the role
* • Be deeply hands-on with physical vehicle testing and validation, translating simulation results into real-world flight behavior
* • Serve as the team's physics expert --- helping the broader engineering team understand how changes to the vehicle impact system performance across all mission conditions
* • Build and operate SIL and HIL simulation environments
* • Perform Monte Carlo analyses, trajectory design, and system performance assessments
* • Contribute to flight software architecture and autonomy frameworks
* • Participate in mission planning and post-flight analysis

**You Should Have**

* • 3-8 years of experience in GNC or flight dynamics engineering
* • Hands-on experience on actual spaceflight missions --- you can describe your specific technical contributions in detail
* • Experience designing, developing, and validating GNC systems including estimation, navigation, guidance, and control algorithms
* • Proficiency in Python for simulation, analysis, and flight software development
* • Experience building flight simulations, dynamics models, and mission analysis tools
* • Comfort operating as the physics authority on a cross-functional team

**Nice to Have**

* • Experience contributing to flight software architecture or autonomy frameworks
* • Background in re-entry, hypersonics, or high-cadence launch programs
* • Experience with post-flight analysis and anomaly resolution