GNC Engineer - Embedded Controls, AI Satellites (Starmind) Verified today

About Starmind

SpaceX is developing Starmind, a constellation of satellites capturing solar energy in space to power low-cost, high-performance AI compute for Earth. The team is building massive solar power generation systems, active cooling, propulsion, and reliable autonomous flight software.

Your Role

As an Embedded Controls Engineer on the GNC team, you will apply expertise in dynamics and closed-loop controls to achieve robust and precise pointing on satellites, payloads, propulsion systems, and mechanisms. This is not analysis-only: you will own vehicle design trades, simulation, flight software implementation, and deployment and operation of your features in space.

Responsibilities

• Design, analyse, and implement electromechanical control systems such as solar array actuators, antenna gimbals, and high bandwidth active optics.
• Design, analyse, and implement satellite attitude control and momentum management systems.
• Design, analyse, and implement fluid and power system controls for the Starlink hall thrusters.
• Develop optimal state estimation for mechanical alignment and attitude determination.
• Specify and size hardware performance, support hardware iteration and firmware bringup, design qualification, automated production screening, and fleet performance monitoring.
• Develop and maintain high fidelity simulations using C++, Python, and MATLAB; integrate simulations into collaborative analysis tools.
• Implement, validate, unit test, and deploy production software (C++) for control systems.
• Provide engineering and data review for hardware development and network-level performance monitoring.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in aerospace, physics, or an engineering discipline.
• Software development experience in C++.
• Experience with design and analysis of closed-loop control systems.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Master's degree or PhD in physics or an engineering discipline.
• Strong expertise in linear closed-loop controls analysis and design, including state space and frequency domain methods.
• Experience with flexible body dynamics and reduced finite element models in closed-loop control systems analysis.
• Expertise in state estimation, Kalman filters, and information filters.
• Strong embedded C++ expertise, ideally in electromechanical control systems firmware.
• Understanding of classical rigid body dynamics, orbital mechanics, and modelling and simulation thereof.
• Direct experience with spacecraft operations, flight software development, testing, and deployment.
• Ability to identify and solve complex problems independently.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

Additional Requirements

• Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. lawful permanent resident, Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State to conform to U.S. Government export regulations.