Flight Control Engineer in London

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About Helsing

Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards. As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously.

The role

Helsing delivers AI-powered capabilities that redefine machine perception and decision‐making. Our Altra platform powers the HX‐2 strike drone, accelerating critical mission functions.

You will work in a dedicated team within Altra and take full end‐to‐end responsibility for developing and validating flight control and guidance laws. In close collaboration with field engineers, your goal is to elevate HX‐2 performance to unprecedented levels and impact the future of defense technology.

Day‐to‐day responsibilities

• Develop flight controllers for different aerial platforms end to end: from controller design, to prototypical implementation and simulation, to implementation in the autopilot, to field testing, and to controller design iteration and refinement.
• Support the specification and execution of tests for flight controller evaluation.
• Collaborate with interfacing disciplines such as Flight Mechanics, Aerodynamics, Embedded Hard‐ and Software, and Testing.
• Contribute, follow and analyse flight tests.

Qualifications

• Hold a M.Sc. or PhD in Aeronautical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics or an equivalent degree.
• Have at least 5 years of professional experience in flight controller development.
• Have very good skills in Matlab/Simulink.
• Have a solid background in aerodynamics, stability and control, and systems modelling.
• Have excellent communication skills and the ability to report and present findings clearly and efficiently both internally and externally.
• Possess solid software engineering skills, writing clean and well‐structured code in Matlab and/or languages like Python, Rust, Java, or modern C++.
• Are passionate about keeping up to date with current research and enjoy reimplementing / extending papers on state‐of‐the‐art flight control laws.

Nice to have

• Hands‐on experience with fixed‐wing aircraft / drones.
• Have worked with or even contributed to open‐source autopilots like Ardupilot or PX4.

Why Helsing?

Helsing's work is important. You'll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns. The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world.

Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward.

In our domain, success is a matter of order‐of‐magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts.

We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about.

What we offer

• A focus on outcomes, not time‐tracking.
• Competitive compensation and stock options.
• Relocation support.
• Social and education allowances.
• Regular company events and all‐hands to bring together employees as one team across Europe.
• A hands‐on onboarding program (affectionately labelled "Infraduction"), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done – all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one.

Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity.