Principal Space & Strategic Navigation Engineer

Overview

Draper is an independent, nonprofit research and development company headquartered in Cambridge, MA. The 2,000+ employees of Draper tackle important national challenges with a promise of delivering successful and usable solutions.

From military defense and space exploration to biomedical engineering, lives often depend on the solutions we provide. Our multidisciplinary teams of engineers and scientists work in a collaborative environment that inspires the cross-fertilization of ideas necessary for true innovation. For more information about Draper, visit www.draper.com.

Our work is very important to us, but so is our life outside of work. Draper supports many programs to improve work-life balance including workplace flexibility, employee clubs ranging from photography to yoga, health and finance workshops, off site social events and discounts to local museums and cultural activities. If this specific job opportunity and the chance to work at a nationally renowned R&D innovation company appeals to you, apply now www.draper.com/careers.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Draper is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. We understand the value of diversity and its impact on a high-performance culture. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or genetic information.

Draper is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. To request reasonable accommodation, please contact hr@draper.com.

Responsibilities

The Space and Strategic Navigation group is seeking a motivated, skilled estimation engineer to support the design, development, and analysis of navigation algorithms and flight software for space systems (like, this, this, this, and this) and strategic systems (like this and this). The group supports the full development arc of flight programs, including covariance analysis, high-fidelity sensor modeling, navigation filter prototyping, Monte Carlo analysis, flight software development, integration/testing, flight test support, and post-flight analysis. The candidate should have demonstrated achievements in one or more of these areas and a willingness to build expertise in the others.

A key component of this group's mission is to maintain and drive forward Draper's core capability in space and strategic navigation, a capability that stretches back to MIT's Instrumentation Lab, which pioneered the field of missile guidance systems in the 1950s and 1960s. That mission underlies our commitment to hire talented engineers, invest in their technical knowledge and leadership skills, and provide them opportunities to make high-impact contributions on programs of critical national importance.

This position is located in Cambridge, MA.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent, with 8 or more years of relevant industry experience

• Significant experience in the design and analysis of extended Kalman filters and related algorithms

• Experience with GPS and inertial sensor modeling

• Familiarity with the following tools: Matlab, Simulink, C/C++, Jira, Git/SVN

Preferred Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent, with 5 or more years of relevant industry experience

• Experience with Model Based Design with generated code from Simulink models

Security Requirement:

Applicants selected for this position will be required to obtain and maintain a government security clearance.

Links

https://www.draper.com/press-release/nasa-awards-draper-73-million-deliver-suite-payloads-moon-2025

https://www.draper.com/press-release/draper-set-return-moon-part-nasa-artemis-i-mission

https://www.draper.com/news-releases/new-way-navigate-your-next-moon-landing

https://www.draper.com/press-release/draper-delivers-gnc-flight-software-stratolaunchs-hypersonic-vehicle

https://www.draper.com/press-release/draper-leidos-team-air-force-research-labs-mayhem-hypersonic-program

https://www.draper.com/news-releases/draper-awarded-109-million-navy-trident-ii-weapons-systems-contract