Wardstone is building the next generation of space-based missile defense. We design and deploy autonomous orbital interceptors capable of defeating hypersonic and ballistic threats, a capability the U.S. and its allies urgently need but that no one has yet delivered.

At Wardstone, you will build hardware that gets tested constantly and pushed to its limits, from US Air Force assisted ground experiments to supersonic ground launched platforms to future orbital prototypes. You’ll work on systems that combine advanced sensing, guidance, high-energy physics, and spaceflight in ways few organizations on Earth attempt.

We are a small, elite engineering team moving fast to solve problems of national importance. Every engineer has massive ownership, rapid iteration cycles, and a direct impact on the direction of the company and the defense of millions of people.

If you want to work at the intersection of space, autonomy, and national security, you should join Wardstone.

We are looking for a Guidance, Navication, and Controls Engineer to build and own the entire guidance, navigation, and control stack for Wardstone’s interceptors. You will design the necessary development tools and flight control algorithms to ensure that Wardstone’s interceptors hit their target.

This is a highly cross-functional role. You will work closely with sensing, actuation, and propulsion engineers to deliver a performant autopilot.

What You’ll Do

Guidance Algorithm Development

• Design guidance laws for midcourse and terminal homing under high-speed, non-linear dynamics.
• Implement proportional navigation, augmented PN, pursuit/lead guidance, and/or optimal control methods.
• Develop intercept prediction algorithms using sensed tracking and state estimation inputs.

Flight Controls & Actuator Modeling

• Design and tune control loops for aerodynamic surfaces, thrust vectoring, or impulse-based actuators.
• Model actuator bandwidth, latency, saturation, and uncertainties.
• Implement robust control strategies for high-G, high-rate maneuvers.

State Estimation & Sensor Fusion

• Implement EKFs/UKFs for fusing IR sensor data, IMU, GPS, and onboard timing signals.
• Build prediction and filtering pipelines that operate reliably under noise, jitter, and thermal effects.
• Develop relative navigation and target-state estimation algorithms.

Simulation & 6DOF Modeling

• Build and maintain high-fidelity 6DOF simulations of interceptor dynamics.
• Integrate aerodynamic models (> Mach 1), control response, propulsion events, and sensor models.
• Run Monte Carlo and worst-case analyses to drive design decisions.

Hardware-in-the-Loop & Real-World Testing

• Develop GNC software that runs on embedded hardware with hard real-time constraints.
• Conduct hardware-in-the-loop tests with scene generators and real sensors.
• Support ground-based intercept tests, including flight software tuning, data collection, and analysis.

Cross-Functional Collaboration and Vehicle Design

• Influence the Vehicle Design through controllability requirements.
• Work with perception engineers to integrate vision-based tracking into guidance algorithms.
• Work with propulsion engineers on control authority, ΔV budgets, and impulse timing.
• Work with embedded engineers to implement deterministic and reliable real-time GNC pipelines.

Required Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Controls, or similar.
• Deep understanding of classical and modern control theory.
• Experience building 6DOF flight simulations (MATLAB, Simulink, Python, C++).
• Strong background in state estimation, nonlinear dynamics, filtering, or guidance algorithms.
• Hands-on experience tuning controllers for UAVs, rockets, missiles, or autonomous systems.
• Familiarity with coordinate frames, quaternion math, and navigation transformations.
• US CITIZENSHIP REQUIRED

Nice to Haves

• Experience with high-speed interceptors, hypersonics, or missile guidance.
• Familiarity with aerodynamics, actuator modeling, or impulse-based control.
• Experience with optimal control (MPC, LQR variants, differential games).
• Experience with embedded real-time systems, RTOS, or high-rate control loops.
• Experience integrating perception (IR/EO, CV algorithms) into closed-loop guidance.
• Experience with MIL-STD flight hardware, environmental testing, or flight qualification.

Our first product, Hailstorm, integrates multiple advanced technologies:

• VLEO satellite interceptors with high maneuverability and rapid response times.
• Infrared sensing and real-time perception, enabling autonomous target detection and tracking.
• High-impulse propulsion and high-energy dispersal systems capable of generating millisecond-scale accelerations.
• Advanced guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) for midcourse correction and terminal homing.
• Physics-driven simulation environments modeling orbital mechanics, missile trajectories, thermal loads, and pellet-cloud dynamics.
• Kinetic particle-cloud intercept architecture that provides a cost-effective, scalable alternative to traditional hit-to-kill missile systems.