{"id":239567,"url":"https://alion.io/job/harmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer","title":"Flight Guidance & Motion Planning Engineer","company":{"id":8839,"name":"Harmattan AI","domain":"harmattan.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/harmattan","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":77,"open_postings":23,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.739,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":74,"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"}},"role":"Robotics","role_family":"Robotics","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Paris, France"],"countries":["FR"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Human-in-the-Loop","optional":false},{"name":"Motion Planning","optional":false},{"name":"Obstacle Avoidance","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-03T10:11:13Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-03","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T04:08:50Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":82,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":82},"description":"About Us\nHarmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces.\nOur work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected.\nABOUT THE ROLE\nHarmattan AI is pushing the boundaries of high-speed autonomous flight, where guidance turns intent into a flyable path at speed. It takes a mission objective or a waypoint, produces the reference, and drives the aircraft along it. It is one of the most demanding parts of the flight software.\nAs a Flight Guidance & Motion Planning Engineer, working out of Lausanne, Paris, or Zurich, you will own motion planning, trajectory generation, and guidance laws, consuming imperfect, delayed inputs from the estimator and the perception pipeline and handing references to the control loop. You will weigh classical against learning-based methods, from optimization-based planning to learned and differentiable approaches, and decide what holds up at high speed.\nRESPONSIBILITIES\nMotion Planning: Plan dynamically feasible paths onboard, including obstacle avoidance, replanning as the situation changes, and perception-aware planning.\n\nTrajectory Generation: Turn those paths into feasible references under airframe and actuator limits, handed cleanly to the control loop.\n\nGuidance Laws: Design the laws that steer the aircraft along the reference and hold it there.\n\nInterfaces & Perception Coupling: Own the input contracts for the ego-state from Navigation and the perception pipeline, and handle their latency, rate, and dropout, including behavior when an input drops.\n\nMode & Failsafe Logic: Across cruise, loiter, and approach, including lost-link behavior.\n\nFlight Test & Diagnosis: Verify across simulation, SITL, and HITL, including Monte Carlo campaigns, then fly and iterate from logs.\n\nMentorship: Depending on seniority, support the team by mentoring junior engineers.\n\nCANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS\nEducational Background: A strong academic record with a degree in aerospace, robotics, GNC, or a related STEM field. A practical track record matters more than the specific degree.\n\nMotion Planning & Trajectory: Proven experience with onboard motion planning, trajectory generation, and tracking, and with guidance laws on flying platforms.\n\nPerception-Coupled Control: Hands-on experience closing a control loop on a perception output, handling latency and dropout.\n\nLearning-Based Methods: Familiarity with learning-based planning or guidance and simulation-based training, with the judgment to weigh it against classical approaches.\n\nProfessional Attributes:\nSystems-minded and pragmatic about failure modes and imperfect inputs, disciplined about simulation and validation.\n\nCommunicates clearly, able to present guidance and test results to engineers and senior stakeholders.\n\nThrives under pressure in a fast-paced environment with a no-task-is-too-small mentality.\n\nBonus: Experience with vision-based or perception-coupled guidance.\n\nCommitment: 100% dedication to Harmattan AI's mission of providing a defensive edge to allied nations through ethical, high-impact technology.\n\nWe look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3580,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Avionics & Flight Control","Robotic Software & Control Systems","Military Drones","Defense AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-05T10:21:51Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":22,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.499,"p_room":0.44,"age_days":82,"expected_fill_days":74,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/harmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/harmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-25T07:58:51Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":11365,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-26T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":8839},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=8839"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fharmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fharmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fharmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/harmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fharmattan-ai-flight-guidance-motion-planning-engineer"}]}