Modeling and Simulation Engineer

Location: Washington, DC (onsite)

Clearance: Active Top Secret required

Comp: $191K–$253K total package (base/bonus/equity mix depending on background)

District Partners is supporting a leading national security engineering organization developing next-generation autonomous systems, advanced sensing platforms, and high-performance mission software. Their work pushes into autonomy, AI-driven perception, distributed systems, and physics-based simulation for complex environments. This is a high-impact engineering role supporting a flagship program that blends hardware, software, and real-time mission operations.

Overview

The Modeling and Simulation Engineer designs and maintains high-fidelity virtual models for a range of aerospace, ground, and sensing systems. These models support software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop environments, algorithm development, system verification, and large-scale simulation runs. You’ll shape how mission-critical platforms are evaluated, tested, and deployed—both internally and with government end users.

The environment moves fast, expectations are high, and decisions matter. This is for someone who thrives in ambiguity, solves problems without waiting for perfect inputs, and makes sound engineering choices under pressure.

What You’ll Do

• Build and maintain high-fidelity models for air, ground, and sensing platforms

• Develop and integrate SITL and HITL simulation environments

• Support guidance, navigation, and control algorithm development and test

• Run Monte Carlo simulations and analyze performance across scenarios

• Create tooling for simulation data processing, analysis, and correlation

• Work across systems, autonomy, perception, and hardware engineering teams

• Partner with internal stakeholders and government customers to define simulation needs

• Troubleshoot complex issues and deliver reliable, production-ready solutions

Required Experience

• Active Top Secret clearance

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in engineering, CS, physics, math, or related technical field

• Experience with aerospace or autonomous vehicle systems (rotorcraft, VTOL, fixed-wing, etc.)

• Strong understanding of platform physics, flight dynamics, and control theory

• Proficiency in C/C++

• Advanced experience with scientific computing tools (MATLAB, Simulink, NumPy/SciPy)

• Experience processing flight-test data and correlating against simulation results

• Experience developing subsystem and system-level models for complex platforms

Preferred

• Advanced proficiency in C/C++ and Python

• Experience supporting live flight tests

• Experience designing or deploying SITL/HITL infrastructure for multi-domain systems

• Experience building emulation or simulation interfaces for onboard electronics