Autonomy Engineer, Controls

About BRINC:

At BRINC, we are redefining public safety with an innovative ecosystem of life-saving tools. Our journey started with the development of drones and ruggedized throw phones, designed to access unsafe areas and establish communication to de-escalate situations. Today, we've expanded into creating and deploying 911 response networks, where drones are dispatched to 911 calls to provide real-time visual data, enhancing safety and enabling de-escalation-focused responses. Our cutting-edge solutions are utilized by over 600 public safety agencies across America and the company has raised over $150M from investors, including Index Ventures, Motorola Solutions, Sam Altman, Dylan Field, Mike Volpe, Alexandr Wang and more. At BRINC, we are committed to recruiting the world's best talent to join us in our mission to support first responders in saving lives. We are currently seeking skilled embedded software engineers to develop flight-critical firmware, with a focus on advanced drone pilot assistance features.

About this Role:

We are seeking a Controls Engineer to join our Autonomy engineering team to advance the guidance, control, and dynamic performance of our UAVs and public safety products. You will design, implement, and tune real-time control algorithms that deliver stable, agile, and reliable flight behavior across a wide range of environments, and mission profiles. In this role, you will work across state estimation, guidance logic, flight control loops, system identification, and fault-tolerant control architectures, collaborating closely with autonomy, software, hardware, and avionics teams to bring high-performance control systems into production UAV platforms.

Key Responsibilities:

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field with a minimum of 3+ years of industry experience. Note - we are considering candidates for mid-career, senior, and principal positions.

• Develop flight control algorithms for attitude, rate, position, and trajectory control on multirotor and hybrid UAVs.

• Build guidance and control pipelines for waypoint tracking, precision trajectory execution, and robust autonomous behaviors.

• Perform system identification, dynamic modeling, and parameter estimation to improve controller accuracy and stability.

• Design robust and fault-tolerant control strategies capable of handling disturbances, sensor issues, and actuator faults.

• Implement deterministic, real-time control loops on embedded hardware.

• Tune controllers, manage gain scheduling, and define flight envelope protection strategies.

• Validate performance through simulation, HIL testing, log replay, and real-world flight testing.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate controls with navigation, autonomy, and avionics systems.

• Contribute to best practices, tooling, and the ongoing evolution of the flight control stack.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field with a minimum of 3+ years of industry experience. Note - we are considering candidates for mid-career, senior, and principal positions.

• Experience with UAV or robotics control systems, including classical and modern techniques (PID, LQR, MPC, etc.).

• Understanding of multirotor dynamics, nonlinear systems, and flight control architectures.

• Experience deploying control loops on embedded hardware.

• Hands-on experience with UAV testing, tuning, and field validation.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with fault-tolerant control, actuator allocation, and redundancy management.

• Familiarity with system identification, aerodynamic modeling, and real-world parameter estimation.

• Knowledge of guidance and trajectory generation methods.

• Understanding of actuator dynamics, propulsion systems, and hardware-in-the-loop simulation.

• Background in UAV safety, reliability, flight envelope protection, and regulatory considerations.

• Experience with ROS, PX4, MAVSDK, or similar robotics middleware.

BRINC Culture Values:

• Try the hard stuff

• Be innovative - Invent the future

• Move fast

• Listen to end-users

• Strive for excellence

• Don’t build a dystopia

• Be frugal

• Save lives through technology

If you’re interested in this role and in joining BRINC, we hope you’ll apply. We’d love to review your application and get to know more about you!

BRINC is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that is resolute in cultivating an environment that promotes safety, diversity, inclusion and equity. We’re committed to hiring the best talent — regardless of race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances — and empowering every employee so they can do their best work. If you have a disability or special need, please let our recruiting team know - we strive to provide appropriate accommodation and assistance.

Benefits and perks listed below may vary based on the nature of your employment with BRINC and/or the country within which you work

• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans for our employees and their families

• 401K plan

• Maternity and paternity leave

• Flexible Time Off (Exempt) / Paid time off (Non-Exempt)

• Flexible work environment

• Orca pass (for those in Puget Sound)

• Free parking (Seattle office)

• Free snacks, drinks and espresso (Seattle office)

Compensation Range: $122K - $275K