autonomous Flight Control Engineer

Company Description

Windtracx is an innovative Swiss startup revolutionizing maritime transportation through clean and efficient active wind propulsion systems. We are developing a rigid-wing aero-kite drone system operating at high altitudes to provide auxiliary towing power for commercial ships, significantly reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

We are looking for an autonomous Flight Control Engineer — to improve and develop the core software architecture originally developed for our early prototypes (formerly under the Skypull project), and bring our active aero-kite system back to production and flight testing.

Role Description

You will be taking full ownership of our unique tethered tail sitter fixed wing drone.

• The drone takes off from the ground station in hovering mode and then it shifts to fixed wing mode.
• It flies a trajectory of 8 shape to generate traction thanks to the wind.
• The drone has 8 propellers and 8 control surfaces.
• The architecture relies on a Supervisory controller, a Drone controller, and a Ground station controller.
• The software development requires a model-based approach where system level simulation uses Gazebo and PX4, transitioning to flight testing with ROS C++ and PX4.

Key Responsibilities

• Autonomous flight controller development and reviewing our UAV control architecture.
• Trajectory planning/tracking control system development.
• Implement closed loop test at avionics test bench, perform system test at bench, and investigate/solve open problem reports.
• Deploy the developed code in our test fleet and be the technical focal point for the testing and in-flight tuning.
• Analyzing the Flight Test data for problems investigation and optimization of dynamic and handling qualities.

Qualifications

• Hold a university degree in aerospace engineering, electronic engineering, software engineering or equivalent.
• Capabilities in ROS development and Pixhawk, with experience with PX4 flight stack.
• Good knowledge of fixed wing UAV control systems (linear and nonlinear) with 2-3 years of experience.
• Good knowledge of tuning PID controllers, IMU, GPS, and state estimators (Kalman Filters).
• Expertise in C/C++, Python, Unix/Linux with 2-3 years of experience.
• Experience in communication protocols (UART, UAVCAN, SPI, I2C, ...).
• Simulation environment development (Gazebo or similar)
• Mastering Claude Code

What We Offer

• The possibility to make a difference both in the company and in the fight for climate change.
• A lot of real experience in outdoor flight test with wind inside the Lodrino airport at SDCC.
• Hybrid workplace, working flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit in everything in and work when you are the most productive.
• While this position is currently unpaid, it includes equity participation, offering the chance to be part of an early-stage startup with strong growth potential.