Principal Navigation Engineer

About Mach Industries

Founded in 2023, Mach Industries is a rapidly growing defense technology company focused on developing next-generation autonomous defense platforms. At the core of our mission is the commitment to delivering scalable, decentralized defense systems that enhance the strategic capabilities of the United States and its allies. With a workforce of approximately 350 employees, we operate with startup agility and ambition.

Our vision is to redefine the future of warfare through cutting-edge manufacturing, innovation at speed, and unwavering focus on national security. We are dedicated to solving the next generation of warfare with lethal systems that deter kinetic conflict and protect global security.

The Role

Mach Industries is seeking a Principal Navigation Engineer to lead the development, integration, and flight validation of navigation systems for autonomous aircraft and related defense platforms. You will own the technical architecture, performance, and maturation of navigation solutions across all mission phases while leading the execution and development of the Navigation team.

This is a hands-on engineering leadership role combining principal-level technical authority, team execution, and people management. You will define navigation architecture, solve challenging estimation and integration problems, establish engineering rigor, develop engineering talent, and ensure navigation capabilities meet program objectives from requirements development through flight test.

The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in state estimation, inertial navigation, sensor fusion, and navigation system integration with decisive technical leadership, sound engineering judgment, and effective people leadership. Success requires translating ambiguous mission needs into clear technical plans, balancing rigor with program speed, and fielding reliable navigation systems in challenging operating environments.

Key Responsibilities

Navigation Architecture and Technical Ownership

• Own the technical architecture, roadmap, execution, and delivery of navigation capabilities across requirements, design, implementation, verification, integration, and flight test.
• Translate mission objectives and vehicle concepts into navigation requirements, sensor specifications, interface definitions, performance budgets, verification criteria, engineering plans, and team deliverables.
• Design, analyze, and mature navigation algorithms, including inertial navigation, state estimation, sensor fusion, sensor calibration, alignment, integrity monitoring, and fault detection and isolation.
• Develop robust estimation solutions that account for sensor noise, bias, drift, timing errors, misalignment, environmental disturbances, vehicle dynamics, computational constraints, and modeling uncertainty.
• Establish rigorous methods for evaluating estimator observability, convergence, consistency, robustness, integrity, and degraded-mode behavior.
• Lead technical discussions and design reviews, ensuring architecture and algorithm decisions are supported by appropriate analysis, test evidence, and system-level reasoning.
• Identify technical deficiencies and risks, establish corrective-action and mitigation plans, and drive issues to resolution.
• Serve as the technical authority for navigation architecture, algorithm design, sensor selection, and significant technical trade studies.

Performance Analysis, Implementation, and Flight Validation

• Lead navigation performance analysis, uncertainty quantification, covariance analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, sensitivity studies, and error-budget development across nominal and off-nominal conditions.
• Develop and maintain navigation simulation models, sensor error models, and software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop verification workflows.
• Drive production implementation of navigation algorithms in embedded, real-time software, reviewing numerical stability, computational efficiency, coordinate conventions, timing, initialization, and fault-handling behavior.
• Define specific ground and flight test objectives, instrumentation requirements, success criteria, and requirements-based verification plans.
• Lead navigation data analysis, model correlation, performance assessment, anomaly investigation, and corrective-action validation.
• Ensure navigation algorithms and hardware are appropriately characterized and validated against system-level requirements throughout development and flight testing.

Sensor Selection, Hardware Architecture, and Make-versus-Buy Decisions

• Own the technical evaluation and selection of navigation sensors and related hardware, including IMUs, GNSS receivers, aiding sensors, and integrated navigation solutions.
• Define sensor performance requirements based on mission needs, system-level error budgets, environmental constraints, interfaces, and navigation architecture.
• Lead quantitative trade studies considering accuracy, noise, bias stability, bandwidth, latency, environmental robustness, size, weight, power, cost, availability, and integration complexity.
• Evaluate make-versus-buy decisions for navigation hardware, algorithms, and integrated solutions, considering performance, development effort, lifecycle cost, schedule, maintainability, supplier support, and strategic value.
• Assess supplier capabilities, component limitations, technology maturity, configuration control, and lifecycle risks to inform architecture and procurement decisions.
• Define sensor characterization, calibration, qualification, and acceptance-test requirements to demonstrate that selected hardware meets system-level objectives.
• Partner with Avionics, Electrical, Mechanical Engineering, Embedded Software, and Supply Chain teams to ensure successful hardware selection, integration, and lifecycle support.

Team Leadership and Development

• Lead and develop a small team of navigation engineers, initially managing approximately three direct reports.
• Establish clear responsibilities, priorities, individual objectives, deliverables, and performance expectations aligned with program milestones.
• Delegate meaningful technical ownership while maintaining accountability for team outcomes and navigation deliverables.
• Provide regular technical feedback, mentorship, coaching, and professional-development opportunities.
• Identify individual strengths and development areas, assigning responsibilities that build increasing engineering independence and technical depth.
• Proactively address performance issues, technical blockers, unclear ownership, and team inefficiencies.
• Recognize when specialized expertise is required and engage the appropriate subject-matter experts.
• Foster a culture of technical rigor, accountability, collaboration, constructive challenge, and continuous improvement.

Engineering Judgment and Program Execution

• Independently identify and prioritize the highest-value engineering activities based on program objectives, technical risk, schedule, and available resources.
• Develop clear technical recommendations for ambiguous problems, evaluating alternatives, trade-offs, consequences, and residual risks.
• Make timely engineering and execution decisions within delegated authority without unnecessary reliance on GNC leadership.
• Exercise sound judgment in determining when additional analysis, algorithm complexity, hardware capability, or engineering effort provides meaningful value.