Role Overview

General Aeronautics is building advanced agricultural drone platforms focused on precision, reliability, and real-world scalability. We are at a high-growth stage where we are driving toward Product-Market Fit ( PMF ) and preparing to scale.We are looking for a Flight Control Lead to drive the development of our Flight Control System ( FCS ), autonomy stack, Ground Control Station ( GCS ) workflows, and mission management systems.This is a high-ownership role requiring deep technical capability, strong execution mindset, and the ability to build systems that are both innovative and operationally reliable, with a sharp focus on customer requirements and field usability. The role demands a leader who can move fast, solve ambiguous problems, and build flight autonomy that performs consistently in real farms and real conditions.

Key Responsibilities

Flight Control, Autonomy & Mission Management

• Lead architecture and development of Flight Control System ( FCS ), autonomy, and GCS -driven mission execution for agricultural drones.
• Own key autonomy capabilities including waypoint missions, path planning, geofencing, terrain following, precision mission execution, and fail-safe behaviors (RTL, hover, emergency landing).
• Drive end-to-end integration of mission management with flight controller systems, including spray control logic, flow-rate management, pump/nozzle control, and mission-linked execution.
• Ensure high standards of safety, reliability, robustness, and repeatability across real-world field operations.

Open Source Autopilot Ecosystem

• Drive development using open-source autopilot ecosystems such as PX4 / ArduPilot , MAVLink / MAVSDK , and GCS tools like QGroundControl / Mission Planner .
• Customize, extend, debug, and optimize autopilot firmware to meet product and operational requirements.

GNC & Control Engineering

• Apply strong fundamentals of Guidance, Navigation & Control ( GNC ) to improve flight stability and performance.
• Lead tuning and optimization of controllers under varying payload, wind, and environmental conditions, including improvements in sensor fusion, estimation, and filtering.

Customer-Centric Product Engineering

• Deeply understand customer workflows and translate requirements into flight system features and mission execution capabilities.
• Work closely with field operations, support teams, and product stakeholders to ensure solutions are practical, scalable, and easy to deploy.
• Use field data and customer feedback to continuously improve mission success rate, safety, uptime, and usability.

Innovation & Reliability Culture

• Drive innovation while maintaining disciplined engineering practices that ensure high operational reliability.
• Build robust testing, validation, and debugging frameworks including SITL / HIL workflows.
• Establish strong diagnostics, logging, and performance monitoring processes to improve fleet reliability and reduce turnaround time for fixes.

Execution Ownership & Team Leadership

• Take end-to-end ownership of flight autonomy deliverables — from requirements to deployment and field validation.
• Mentor and guide engineers working on autonomy, embedded systems, GCS integration, and mission management.
• Drive best practices in design reviews, documentation, release management, and engineering quality.
• Collaborate with mechanical, electronics, cloud, and AI teams to deliver integrated product improvements.

Required Skills & Qualifications

Preferred Skills (Good to Have)

Tools & Modern Engineering Mindset

• Comfortable using modern AI tools such as ChatGPT , GitHub Copilot , Cursor , etc. to accelerate engineering productivity.
• Ability to apply AI tools responsibly while ensuring correctness, safety, and validation discipline.

Key Attributes

• Strong passion for autonomy, GNC , and flight systems engineering.
• High-energy execution mindset with a strong bias toward shipping outcomes, not just ideas.
• Innovative mindset with a strong bias for reliability and field robustness.
• Customer-first approach with ability to understand real operational requirements.
• Strong communication skills and ability to lead cross-functional technical discussions.
• Collaborative and team-oriented leadership style.
• Ability to thrive in a PMF -stage environment with ambiguity, fast iteration cycles, and high ownership expectations.

What Success Looks Like

• Reliable flight performance across varying payloads and harsh agricultural environments.
• Autonomy features that improve safety, reduce pilot workload, and increase mission success.
• Strong mission management integration ensuring consistent precision spraying and repeatability.
• Scalable testing, diagnostics, and release frameworks enabling faster iteration cycles.
• High customer satisfaction driven by stable, user-friendly and dependable systems.
• Clear measurable improvements in field performance metrics such as uptime, mission completion rate, and incident reduction.

Why Join General Aeronautics

• Opportunity to build autonomy and flight systems that operate in challenging real-world conditions.
• High ownership role with direct impact on product performance and customer success.
• Fast-paced environment where strong engineers shape the roadmap and ship quickly.
• Work at the intersection of robotics, flight controls, mission execution, and real-world deployment.