Senior Software Engineer - Robotic Controls

The role

You will build the foundation for NEO's whole-body control and manipulation strategies. This includes owning state estimation, kinematics, robot models, system identification, and sensor signal conditioning.

What you will do

• Ship floating-base pose, velocity, joint state, contact, and force/torque estimation.
• Own robot models, frames, inverse kinematics, and command trajectory generation.
• Characterize actuators, tendons, and transmissions through system identification.
• Run sensor and modality trade studies and own the path from raw sensor to trusted signal.
• Build monitoring, limits, and fault reactions for diagnostics and fault response.
• Partner with production and service teams for calibration and bring-up procedures.

Required qualifications

• Proven track record of shipping state estimation or control software on physical robots or comparable electromechanical systems
• Deep experience implementing and tuning state estimators such as EKF, UKF, invariant, or complementary filters against real, noisy sensor data
• Strong applied foundation in rigid body kinematics, frame transforms, and inverse kinematics and dynamics
• Hands-on experience with system identification and calibration of actuators, transmissions, or sensors
• High proficiency writing production-quality real-time C++ on Linux, with Python for tooling and analysis
• 5+ years of relevant industry experience, or an advanced degree plus equivalent hands-on experience

Nice to have

• Background in tendon-driven or cable-driven actuation and dexterous end-effectors, including slack, stretch, and non-collocated sensing
• Experience with optimal control methods such as convex optimization, model predictive control, or trajectory optimization
• Experience fusing exteroceptive estimation such as visual-inertial odometry into a floating-base estimator
• Familiarity with real-time transport and fieldbus protocols such as EtherCAT or CAN
• Hands-on experience bringing up robot hardware from scratch, or working closely with firmware and electrical teams at the hardware-software boundary

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Generous paid time off, company holidays, and parental leave
• 401(k) plan with company match (100% on the first 3% of contributions, 50% on the next 2%)
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) options
• Commuter benefits (transit and parking)
• Short-term and long-term disability, and life insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health, financial, and personal support
• Onsite snacks and catered lunches

About the company

1X builds humanoid robots that work in homes to do chores and handle tasks. Their flagship robot is NEO, a home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world alongside people.