Guidance & Control Software Engineer
Posted 1 day ago by Unify
£65 Per hour
Outside
Hybrid
Barnet, Greater London
Summary: The Guidance & Control Software Engineer role focuses on developing advanced software for autonomous interception systems, particularly in high-speed target engagement scenarios. The position requires expertise in missile guidance and control algorithms, with a strong emphasis on real-time C++ implementation. The engineer will collaborate with various teams to ensure reliable performance in dynamic environments. This role is ideal for candidates with a background in high-dynamic autonomous vehicles or weapon systems.
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop predictive guidance and control algorithms for autonomous interception
- Implement proportional navigation, pursuit guidance or equivalent terminal control laws
- Design trajectory prediction and time-to-impact logic for manoeuvring targets
- Integrate perception outputs into stable closed-loop control behaviour
- Tune and validate behaviour across dynamic envelopes and degraded sensing conditions
- Develop state estimation and tracking filters (e.g. Kalman based approaches)
- Handle uncertain and intermittent measurement data
- Fuse onboard sensors and vision-derived measurements
- Prevent divergence and oscillatory behaviour in terminal phase
- Implement real-time flight software in modern C++
- Optimise performance for embedded compute constraints
- Support hardware-in-the-loop and simulation environments
- Work with safety-critical and deterministic execution constraints
- Collaborate with perception and simulation engineers
- Analyse flight logs and engagement performance
- Support ground and flight trials
- Debug instability, tracking loss, and intercept miss distance issues
Key Skills:
- Strong C++ experience in embedded or real-time systems
- Background in guidance, navigation and control, tracking, or estimation
- Experience with high dynamic autonomous or weapon systems
- Understanding of control laws and dynamic stability
- Experience working with real sensor data rather than purely simulated environments
- Familiarity with modelling or simulation environments desirable
- Knowledge of vision-based navigation or target tracking beneficial
- Degree in Aerospace Engineering, Control Systems, Robotics, Physics, Mathematics or similar
- Eligibility to work on defence related programmes in the UK (SC Cleared / 5 years residency in the UK)
Salary (Rate): £65/hour
City: Barnet
Country: United Kingdom
Working Arrangements: Hybrid
IR35 Status: Outside IR35
Seniority Level: Mid-Level
Industry: IT
Guidance & Control Software Engineer (Interception Systems)
Location: North London - Hybrid
Type: Contract - Outside IR35
Rate: Starting at £50 per hour DOE
About the Role
Our client develops advanced autonomous weapon and interception technologies designed for high-speed target engagement in contested environments.
The programme centres on a vision-guided one-way aerial system capable of autonomously detecting, tracking, and intercepting manoeuvring objects. The software architecture combines real-time perception with predictive guidance and control.
This role will be central to the development of the onboard flight and guidance stack, implementing estimation, tracking and control algorithms in performance-critical C++ code. The engineer will work closely with perception, simulation and hardware teams to ensure reliable terminal behaviour under real-world conditions.
The Guidance & Control Software Engineer position suits an engineer with experience in missile guidance, air defence, seekers, or high-dynamic autonomous vehicles rather than conventional UAV autopilot development.
Key Responsibilities
- Guidance & Control
- Develop predictive guidance and control algorithms for autonomous interception
- Implement proportional navigation, pursuit guidance or equivalent terminal control laws
- Design trajectory prediction and time-to-impact logic for manoeuvring targets
- Integrate perception outputs into stable closed-loop control behaviour
- Tune and validate behaviour across dynamic envelopes and degraded sensing conditions
- Estimation & Tracking
- Develop state estimation and tracking filters (e.g. Kalman based approaches)
- Handle uncertain and intermittent measurement data
- Fuse onboard sensors and vision-derived measurements
- Prevent divergence and oscillatory behaviour in terminal phase
- Software Implementation
- Implement real-time flight software in modern C++
- Optimise performance for embedded compute constraints
- Support hardware-in-the-loop and simulation environments
- Work with safety-critical and deterministic execution constraints
- Integration & Testing
- Collaborate with perception and simulation engineers
- Analyse flight logs and engagement performance
- Support ground and flight trials
- Debug instability, tracking loss, and intercept miss distance issues
Behaviours
- Analytical and physics-driven problem solving
- Comfortable working with incomplete or ambiguous data
- Collaborative across perception, hardware and systems teams
- Pragmatic and delivery focused
- Ownership mindset with strong accountability
- Calm under test and trial pressure
Qualifications and Experience
- Strong C++ experience in embedded or real-time systems
- Background in guidance, navigation and control, tracking, or estimation
- Experience with high dynamic autonomous or weapon systems
- Understanding of control laws and dynamic stability
- Experience working with real sensor data rather than purely simulated environments
- Familiarity with modelling or simulation environments desirable
- Knowledge of vision-based navigation or target tracking beneficial
- Degree in Aerospace Engineering, Control Systems, Robotics, Physics, Mathematics or similar
- Eligibility to work on defence related programmes in the UK (SC Cleared / 5 years residency in the UK)