About HyLight:

HyLight’s mission is to help society become more resilient to climate change by improving the observation and inspection of infrastructure.

We build HyLighters, airships that collect data across vast distances with zero emissions.

Our activities include:

• Detecting methane leaks from gas infrastructures (4% of global GHG emissions)
• Inspecting power lines to prevent outages and wildfires

By 2030, we aim to become the global leader in aerial monitoring. 

In just 3 years, we have pushed the realm of possibilities: as we have:

• Developed 8 iterations of the HyLighter
• Logged over 200 flight hours
• Secured our first inspection contracts with Europe’s largest infrastructure operators
• Joined the world’s top startup accelerator, Y Combinator
• Raised €6 millions

HyLight is aiming for a diverse and included team, if your profile doesn't fit all the description but you can bring a diverse point of view, push it forward, it will be highly appreciated.

We’re well-funded and backed by top investors, providing the resources you wish you had when building your own business. We don’t care about traditional roles or titles—just that you’re smart, proactive, and bring the same founder-level ownership and drive to help us build something massive.

Job Summary:

As a GNC engineer at HyLight, you'll lead the Reinforcement Learning development for our Guidance, Navigation, and Control systems that power our zero-emission airships. Working at the intersection of classical control theory and modern reinforcement learning, you will develop intelligent control that can adapt and optimize flight behavior in real-world dynamic environments.

You'll be embedded within our GNC team, collaborating closely with control engineers, embedded systems, and flight operations to deploy and validate RL-enhanced control capabilities from simulation to real flight. This role combines traditional GNC expertise with cutting-edge RL techniques to achieve superior autonomous flight performance.

The Mission:

Under the guidance of our CTO and in collaboration with the technical and regulatory teams, your responsibilities will include:

• Understanding and modeling the dynamics of the HyLighter airship
• Designing and implementing control and guidance laws for mission execution
• Developing flight strategies for challenging weather and operational conditions
• Creating risk mitigation strategies for degraded flight modes
• Defining and participating in flight tests and validation campaigns
• Writing comprehensive documentation of models and implemented control laws
• Ensuring regulatory compliance and justifying system robustness to aviation authorities
• Collaborating across teams to improve HyLighter performance and design future solutions
• Contributing to the development of fully autonomous flight capabilities

Profile Sought:

Education: MSc (or PhD) in Aerospace Engineering, Control Systems, Robotics, or Machine Learning with strong focus on both control theory and reinforcement learning applications

We are looking for an ambitious and highly motivated person to join our team, participate in building HyLight, and grow with the project!

Technical Skills: 

This is an exhaustive list of sought after skills, if you have 

• Strong background in control theory and GNC principles for aerospace applications
• Solid experience with reinforcement learning, including model-based and model-free approaches
• Proficiency in Python and C++/C programming languages
• Understanding of flight dynamics and airship/aircraft control systems
• Experience with simulation environments for RL training (preferably aerospace-related)
• Ability to bridge classical control and RL methodologies for hybrid control architectures
• Familiarity with C++/C for embedded control system implementation

Soft Skills:

• Leadership mindset with ability to drive RL initiatives within the GNC team
• Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset
• Excellent teamwork experience, preferably in innovation, startup, or R&D environments
• Curious, proactive, and eager to take ownership of challenging technical problems
• Detail-oriented approach to documentation and system validation

Languages:

French (professional working proficiency), English (fluent – internal communication and documentation)

What We Offer:

• Annual compensation: €50,000 - €70,000 (based on experience)
• Real responsibility and direct impact on cutting-edge autonomous flight technology
• Mentorship with the Tech and Regulatory teams
• Potential to become a shareholder in HyLight
• 100% reimbursement of public transport pass (Navigo) or €800/year for sustainable commuting
• Bike provided for commuting
• Free lunch
• Bi-annual offsite trips with the whole team
• Excellent work environment: international team, team events, beautiful offices on a former airbase

Why You Should Join:

• Founder Mentality: We value extreme ownership and want people who think like founders—fast decision makers, natural problem solvers, and executers.
• Ground Floor Opportunity: You’ll be helping to shape and grow a revolutionary company with the resources to back it.
• Impact & Speed: Work in a fast-paced environment where your contributions will have immediate, tangible effects on the company’s success.

Interview Process:

• Introductory phone call (20 min)
• Video interview with our CTO Josef (40 min)
• A 1 hour technical case study followed by a debrief with team members
• Reference calls
• On-site meeting with the team (1h)

Location:

• Office : Base 217, Brétigny-sur-Orge, accessible via RER C.
• Lab and Warehouse access
• You’ll work side-by-side with experts in embedded, aerospace, and hydrogen propulsion systems—where your impact matters from day one.