The Role
Design and implement spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control algorithms, including simulation and integration with flight software and hardware testing.
Summary Generated by Built In
Be one of the Bedo 100
Albedo is making Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) mainstream, building the infrastructure to usher every satellite mission set into this new orbital domain. We build buses, integrated satellites, and turnkey missions for customers to thrive in VLEO, between 250 km - 400 km, where proximity compounds performance and drag self-cleans debris.
As part of the first 100 employees at Albedo, you will have a big impact on Albedo’s trajectory to proliferating VLEO — whether you’re advancing hardware to increase satellite longevity, scaling production for large constellations, building next-gen flight and ground software to push performance, or enabling missions that matter for national security and our day-to-day life here on earth.
How We Operate: Albedo takes a first-principles approach — in space and in business. We move with speed, take calculated risks, and learn quickly. We use AI regularly to create leverage in every discipline across the company. We work in-person at our Broomfield CO HQ to maximize team and company productivity. We work hard and with urgency to compound our first-mover advantage.
Who We're Looking For: Builders who want to own outcomes, not tasks. Systems thinkers who balance precision with iteration while thinking about the big picture. Individuals who are energized by creating a category rather than competing in an existing one. You’ll join a team that has already proven what others said wasn’t feasible and is now scaling and upgrading our VLEO buses & payloads to serve mission sets across sensing, communications, and responsive operations.
If you can feel the excitement running through your veins, apply to be one of the Bedo 100.
We’re looking for an early-career Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineer to help design the brains that keep our spacecraft precise, agile, and on mission. If you like turning math into flight code and simulations into reality, you’ll fit right in.
What You’ll Do:
- Design and implement spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) algorithms
- Implement control and estimation algorithms in modern C++, targeting both simulation environments and embedded flight software.
- Design feedback control laws with frequency-domain constraints to meet demanding motion and pointing performance requirements.
- Contribute to system-level analysis including sensor and actuator modeling, structural dynamics interaction, and control-structure co-design.
- Build and validate high-fidelity environment models (orbital dynamics, disturbances, sensors, actuators)
- Combine models and control algorithms into integrated simulation frameworks
- Develop complex spacecraft simulations in C++
- Develop closely with the flight software team to ensure seamless integration from simulation to flight
- Collaborate with the AI and mission software teams to improve autonomy, testing velocity, and mission performance
- Support hardware-in-the-loop testing and contribute to mission readiness efforts
- Strong proficiency in C++, including real-time and embedded system considerations.
- Background in control systems design and stability analysis
- Experience with frequency-domain control analysis (e.g., Bode plots, phase/gain margin, bandwidth).
- Understanding of guidance algorithms for spacecraft maneuver planning, trajectory generation, and constraint handling
- Familiarity with constrained optimization, optimal control, or trajectory planning techniques
- Familiarity with state estimation and Kalman filtering
- Familiarity with spacecraft GNC sensors (e.g., star trackers, IMUs, sun sensors, GNSS receivers)
- Familiarity with attitude actuators (e.g., torque rods, reaction wheels, control moment gyros)
- Ability to leverage AI tools to accelerate development, testing, and iteration
- B.S. or M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or related field
$83,719 - $116,277 per year
Compensation and Benefits for Full-Time Roles:
- Employee friendly equity compensation
- 4% direct matching 401k
- Health Insurance: 100% employee coverage & 75% dependent coverage
- Parental leave and childcare coverage
- Flexible vacation and sick time from day one
- 12 company holidays
- $100 monthly wellness benefit
- Relocation package if not based in Denver
The final compensation package is subject to change if the candidate's experience and company need drive a different job level than originally slated for the position.
Albedo does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to Albedo employees. Albedo is not responsible for any fees or overhead related to unsolicited resumes.
Additional Requirements: In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire. All persons hired will be required to be a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled: Albedo is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Relocation: Relocation support for this position is available
US CITIZENSHIP IS REQUIRED
#LI-Onsite
Top Skills
AI
C++
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The Company
What We Do
Albedo is the first space company to commercialize and provide platform capabilities to the new orbit regime of VLEO. VLEO — very low Earth orbit — transforms satellite capabilities by operating twice as close to Earth, enabling dramatic improvements in performance while reducing system costs. Albedo’s first satellite Clarity-1 — launched in March 2025 and now operating in VLEO — exemplifies the disruptive potential of the company’s proprietary VLEO platform. Clarity-1 delivers imagery at a resolution previously exclusive to drones & aircraft or billion-dollar classified satellites, while showcasing a platform that can support a variety of mission types. The world is rapidly changing and a new level of visibility and transparency is required to solve some of our largest problems. Albedo’s 10cm visible and 2m thermal imagery will fuel insights for industries such as mapping, insurance, utilities, solar, agriculture, carbon offsets, infrastructure sustainability, national security, and much more.
