Vehicle Controls - Technical Lead

The role

You will own the technical direction of the controls stack across its full lifecycle. This includes designing controllers, characterizing vehicle dynamics, and mentoring the controls team for various heavy equipment platforms.

What you will do

• Set the technical direction for the controls stack from platform bring-up to production programs
• Design and implement controllers from low-level actuator control to trajectory tracking
• Design safe, redundant control systems for safety-critical environments
• Characterize vehicle dynamics to create tailored controls solutions
• Build calibration and vehicle characterization workflows for vehicle fleets
• Lead, mentor, and grow the existing controls team
• Set priorities and unblock engineers through design reviews and collaboration
• Evaluate and apply academic research to create optimal-control-based solutions
• Collaborate with customers' engineers and manage relationships through field deployments

Required qualifications

• MSc or PhD in mechanical engineering, robotics, or computer science with coursework or research experience in controls
• 6+ years of experience building production software using modern software practices
• Experience leading engineers or owning a technical area
• Hands-on experience taking controls solutions from first prototype through deployment on real, production-grade vehicles
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, prioritize a team's roadmap, and drive technical decisions
• Fluency in differential equations, numerical optimization, numerical analysis, and physics

Nice to have

• Experience writing safety-critical, high-performance software using modern C++
• Experience in quadratic programming and nonlinear optimization
• Experience with heavy equipment or off-road platforms in construction, mining, or agriculture
• Experience building calibration pipelines or system identification tooling used across a fleet

Benefits

• Base salary
• Equity (options and/or restricted stock units)
• Health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance coverage
• 401k retirement benefits with employer match
• Learning and wellness stipends
• Paid time off

About the company

Applied Intuition, Inc. is a Silicon Valley company creating digital infrastructure for physical AI. It services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries.