GNC Engineer, Tracking

About Us

We are a stealth-mode Aerospace & Defense startup headquartered in Gardena, CA. Our founding team hails from SpaceX, Anduril, and Lockheed Martin, and we are backed by Joint Staff-level military leadership and top-tier Silicon Valley firms. Our mission is urgent: to develop and deploy life-saving missile defense systems that can be fielded globally, today. We are assembling a high-agency team committed to moving fast, solving hard problems, and defending what matters most.

About The Role

We are looking for a software engineer focused on real-time tracking, state estimation, and multi-sensor fusion for embedded autonomous systems. This role sits at the intersection of guidance/navigation, computer vision, and real-time software engineering.

You will develop robust target tracking and estimation pipelines that operate under challenging real-world conditions including noisy measurements, intermittent detections, high dynamics, latency, dropped frames, and constrained compute environments. The ideal candidate has strong fundamentals in estimation theory and probabilistic systems, while also understanding the realities of interfacing with modern computer vision stacks running on embedded GPU platforms.

Responsibilities

Design and implement real-time tracking and state estimation algorithms for airborne and autonomous systems
Develop and maintain multi-target tracking pipelines using camera, IMU, and additional sensor inputs
Implement filtering and sensor fusion algorithms including:
Extended Kalman Filters (EKF)
Unscented Kalman Filters (UKF)
Particle Filters
IMM / Multiple-Model Estimators
Smoothing and probabilistic estimation methods
Build robust track management systems including:
Track initiation and deletion
Measurement gating
Data association
Covariance management
Occlusion handling
Track confidence scoring
Interface tracking systems with modern computer vision pipelines and detectors
Integrate asynchronous measurements from heterogeneous sensors with differing latencies and update rates
Optimize algorithms for embedded compute platforms including NVIDIA Jetson-class hardware
Develop low-latency real-time software in C++ for deployment in operational environments
Work closely with guidance, autonomy, perception, and controls engineers
Build simulation and replay environments for estimator validation and performance analysis
Analyze estimator stability, observability, and numerical robustness under degraded conditions

Required Qualifications

BS/MS in Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or related field
Strong experience with state estimation, tracking, or sensor fusion systems
Strong C++ software engineering experience
Experience implementing real-time systems on Linux
Solid understanding of:
Linear algebra
Probability and statistics
Coordinate frames and transformations
Kinematics and dynamics
Numerical methods
Experience with one or more of the following:
Multi-object tracking
Visual-inertial estimation
SLAM
Radar tracking
EO/IR tracking systems
Guidance and navigation systems
Familiarity with computer vision pipelines and detector outputs
Experience consuming outputs from CV frameworks such as:
TensorRT
DeepStream
OpenCV
PyTorch/TensorRT inference pipelines
Experience debugging noisy real-world sensor systems

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with embedded GPU platforms (Jetson Xavier, Orin, CUDA)
Familiarity with EO/IR sensor systems
Experience with asynchronous sensor timing and synchronization
Experience building high-rate telemetry or distributed real-time systems
Understanding of:
Bayesian filtering
Multi-hypothesis tracking
JPDA/MHT approaches
Optical flow
Visual odometry
Familiarity with ROS2, GStreamer, or DeepStream pipelines
Experience with hardware interfaces such as:
CAN
UART/RS232
Ethernet UDP/TCP
MIPI CSI-2
Experience with simulation environments and hardware-in-the-loop testing
Prior aerospace, defense, or autonomous systems experience

What You’ll Work On

Real-time target tracking systems operating on embedded edge hardware
High-rate fusion of EO/IR detections with inertial navigation systems
Low-latency estimator pipelines for autonomous guidance applications
Robust tracking systems resilient to clutter, dropped detections, and degraded sensing environments
Tight integration between perception, estimation, and control subsystems

Ideal Candidate

You are someone who enjoys bridging theory and deployment reality. You understand that good tracking performance comes not only from elegant filtering equations, but also from robust software architecture, timing discipline, sensor characterization, and operational awareness.

You are comfortable debugging systems where detector confidence, latency, dropped packets, motion blur, and estimator divergence all interact simultaneously — and you know how to build systems that remain stable and performant anyway.

CUDA acceleration
GPU-accelerated vision pipelines
Real-time Linux optimization
Object detection and classification systems
RF or radar tracking
Flight software or autonomy stacks
Distributed sensor systems
Tactical networking and telemetry systems

Compensation & Benefits

Competitive salary and equity package
High ownership and technical autonomy
Opportunity to work on advanced autonomous systems
Access to cutting-edge embedded compute and sensing hardware
Fast-paced engineering environment with direct mission impact

Itar Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C.
1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C.
1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
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