Control Systems Engineer

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

About American Terawatt

American Terawatt is building a new industrial electric grid for the United States. Power systems engineering is at the core of what we do.

We design and deploy advanced power transmission systems, serving large industrial loads, gigawatts at a time. Our systems deliver power to everything from frontier AI datacenters to advanced automated manufacturing, refineries, mines, and more.

We make interconnection fast, simple, and cheap. On our network, generation owners get their projects online faster, delivering abundant power at competitive prices.

The backbone of American Terawatt’s network is HVDC transmission, anchored by our unique terminal design. American Terawatt’s HVDC terminals are standardized, modular, and natively integrate energy storage. Each terminal is designed to expand to operate as a full node on our future HVDC transmission network.

About the role

We are hiring a Control Systems Engineer to develop, test, and deploy the control software behind our HVDC terminals and transmission network.

You will work directly with the Principal Power Systems Control Architect, power systems engineers, and the broader R&D team, taking ownership of key control software subsystems, validation, and commissioning support.

This is a hands-on builder role for someone who wants to turn control theory into reliable systems operating on real power infrastructure.

This is currently an individual contributor role, with the opportunity to grow into broader system-level and architectural ownership as the company scales. You will report directly to the Principal Power Systems Control Architect.

What you will own

As a Control Systems Engineer at American Terawatt, you will:

• Own key control software subsystems end-to-end (development, testing, deployment, and maintenance) while contributing to the design of the broader terminal and network-level control architecture.

• Work closely with the power systems engineering team to support seamless power delivery from our terminals and across the HVDC transmission network.

• Help verify performance and robustness of control systems before deployment.

• Participate in in-situ commissioning of controls software for deployments.

• Maintain and improve the team’s controls software development pipelines including CI/CD and issue tracking.

This is a technically rigorous role within R&D Engineering, reporting to the Principal Power Systems Control Architect and supporting the planning and execution of critical company programs.

What success looks like

You will help shape the exact roadmap, but we expect success in this role to include the following early milestones:

In your first month

• Develop a working understanding of the terminal control architecture, assigned software subsystems, and current engineering priorities.

• Set up the required development and simulation environments and successfully run existing baseline tests.

• Take ownership of an initial controls task and align with the team on requirements, testing, and expected outcomes.
  

By month six

• Independently own a key control software subsystem through development, testing, and release.

• Validate control performance and reliability through simulation and available SIL/HIL testing, resolving issues before deployment.

• Contribute to a major integration or commissioning milestone while improving the team’s testing, CI/CD, and issue-tracking processes.
  

Required Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field.

• 3+ years of commercial engineering experience designing, implementing, and delivering control systems in safety-critical domains (aerospace, robotics, EV, or similar).

• Experience developing and validating controls using simulation tools such as MATLAB/Simulink or PLECS.

• Professional or academic experience demonstrating in-depth knowledge of control theory fundamentals: feedback/feedforward control, state estimation, PID tuning, and stability analysis.

• Experience validating control systems on hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and/or software-in-the-loop (SIL) platforms (e.g., RTDS, OPAL-RT, or similar).

• Experience with version control, CI/CD pipelines, and software development best practices in an embedded systems or controls context.

• Strong debugging and root-cause analysis skills across software, firmware, and hardware boundaries.
  
  

Preferred Experience

• Master's or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Controls, or Power Systems.

• Exposure to real-time embedded control systems development (e.g., C/C++ on RTOS or bare-metal platforms).

• Exposure to electromagnetic transient analysis utilizing simulation tools such as PSCAD or EMTP.

• Experience with PSSE and PSLF transmission grid simulation tools.

• Experience with power electronics control (inverters, converters, rectifiers), ideally on Voltage Source Converter (VSC) HVDC systems.

• Exposure to grid-forming and grid-following inverter control strategies.

• Experience with distributed or networked control systems.

• Exposure to version control (e.g., Git) and CI/CD concepts.
  

Compensation & Benefits

• Compensation: Competitive compensation package commensurate with experience, including salary and material equity participation.

• Healthcare: Medical, dental, and vision coverage, including 75% coverage for dependents and spouses.

• Wellness: Up to $300/month reimbursement for gym and wellness expenses, or Bay Club membership for SF-based employees.

• Meals: Lunch provided daily when working from an office.

• Time off: Unlimited PTO with manager approval, plus company-wide office closures for July 4 week and one week in December.

• Additional perks: Laptop of choice provided, convenient SF office location on the Embarcadero and near public transit (pre-tax transit benefit), and employee contribution 401(k) program.