Mission Performance Analyst

Role overview Analyze aircraft performance and environmental limits to set quantitative operating boundaries for automated flight systems. You will combine physical analysis, simulation results, and real flight data to inform system requirements, safety assessments, and procedures for normal, extreme, and degraded operating conditions.

Responsibilities - Establish measurable operating thresholds using existing simulations; develop basic first-principles models or define the analysis needed to fill gaps. - Work with autopilot and guidance, navigation, and control teams to evaluate flight-control limits, mode transitions, and edge cases. - Assess how conditions such as crosswinds, icing, and communication delays affect system behavior and transitions. - Define demanding mission scenarios to evaluate system resilience and automated responses to combined failures. - Analyze flight databases and telemetry with Python, MATLAB, or SQL to establish performance baselines and operating insights. - Provide quantitative inputs for safety hazard assessments and flight manual procedures, accounting for atmospheric, terrain, and payload variation.

Requirements - Master’s degree in science or engineering, or a bachelor’s degree with at least 10 years of experience, in aerospace, mechanical engineering, physics, applied mathematics, or a related field. - At least 5 years of experience in aircraft performance, flight sciences, flight dynamics, or aerospace systems engineering. - Proficiency analyzing large or noisy flight datasets and telemetry with Python, MATLAB, SQL, or similar tools.

Nice to have - Strong first-principles aerodynamic analysis skills and experience setting safety margins with incomplete data. - Experience operating Part 23 or Part 25 aircraft with an FAA pilot certificate, or remotely piloting large military uncrewed aircraft. - Familiarity with aerospace development standards, airworthiness regulations, and systems safety engineering. - Experience with autopilot, flight control, guidance and navigation, or envelope protection systems.

Benefits and work setup The role may be remote or based in Mountain View, Seattle, or San Diego, with travel up to 10%. Work requires access to export-controlled information and is subject to applicable U.S. export control requirements.