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)