Senior Robotics Engineer, Controls

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Compensation: $180K – $200K

Employment Type: FullTime

About the Role

Join a small engineering team developing autonomous systems in the defense technology sector. As a senior individual contributor, you will own the precision motion controls stack, from control-loop architecture and state estimation to integration and validation on real hardware.

What You'll Do

• Design and tune precision pointing and tracking control loops, including closed-loop operation from sensor input to actuator commands at hundreds of hertz.

• Develop state estimation and sensor fusion using IMU, encoder, and vision feedback.

• Identify and model gimbal, mount, and actuator dynamics, and compensate for resonance, backlash, friction, saturation, and other nonlinearities.

• Build and maintain controls simulation and hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure to validate designs and reduce the sim-to-real gap.

• Integrate controls with tracking systems and characterize performance on physical hardware in laboratory and field settings.

• Document controls architecture, tuning approaches, and engineering standards.

What We're Looking For

• At least 4 years of robotics experience, including hands-on design and tuning of closed-loop controllers on motion hardware such as servo drives, brushless motors, encoders, and IMUs.

• Strong grounding in classical and state-space control, including LQR and MPC, with experience applying control methods to physical systems.

• Practical state-estimation experience, such as Kalman, EKF, UKF, or complementary filters, and sensor fusion on hardware.

• Experience with system identification, frequency-domain tuning, resonance characterization, and real-time control-loop latency and jitter.

• Modern C++ for real-time control, plus Python or MATLAB/Simulink for modeling, simulation, and analysis.

• Experience validating simulations against real hardware and working across mechanical, electrical, and software disciplines.

• Background in precision motion, gimbals, target tracking, aerospace, or other related control systems is valuable.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $180,000 to $200,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California.