We're looking for a hands-on Embedded Controls Engineer to own firmware, plant identification, and closed-loop control for a novel actuator platform targeting humanoid robotics joints. This is not a tuning role on a known plant: you will define the control strategy for an actuator whose physics do not map cleanly to a standard motor-control playbook.
What You'll Do
- Firmware: Write and own the full embedded stack — state machine, multi-phase commutation, and fault handling on an ARM Cortex-M or similar MCU.
- Plant Characterization: Design and run frequency sweep experiments on live hardware; extract Bode plots, transfer functions, and the limits of existing modeling assumptions.
- Control Architecture: Develop the control approach required by the actuator — whether by adapting advanced controls methods or inventing new ones; validate in simulation, then implement and tune on hardware.
- Host Interface: Implement controls protocol; mirror the same command set a BLDC motor controller accepts where useful, without forcing the actuator into the wrong abstraction.
- System Integration: Own full system integration through Alpha and 1M-cycle endurance soak.
Qualifications
- Education: BS, MS, or PhD in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering or equivalent.
- Experience: 3+ years in embedded controls, including at least one real system taken from open-loop characterization to stable closed-loop operation on hardware.
- Core technical skills:
- Embedded C/C++ on ARM Cortex-M — state machines, interrupts, real-time constraints
- Control systems: frequency-domain plant ID, transfer function analysis, and strong command of classical and modern control methods
- Motor control background (BLDC/PMSM, FOC) — strong plus, especially if you know where the standard framework breaks
- Comfort building controls for electromechanical systems that do not come with an accepted architecture, mature model, or datasheet
- What we value:
- First-principles fluency — form a deep physical model of a new system and turn it into a practical control architecture
- Originality and technical courage — able to reject the default approach when the plant demands something different
- A builder mindset: bench time, fast failure analysis, iterating toward a real product
