Guidance & Control Software Engineer (Interception Systems)
Location: North London - Hybrid
Type: Contract - Outside IR35
Rate: Starting at 50 per hour DOE
Overview
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.
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)
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