Senior Controls Engineer

The role

Controls Engineers build the algorithmic foundations that make robots move. You will own the estimation and controls stack, design low-level and optimal control schemes, and build autonomous navigation capabilities for a fleet of robots.

What you will do

• Design, implement, and tune low-level controllers and optimal control schemes.
• Evaluate and implement metrics to guarantee high-tracking accuracy and consistent behavior for the robot fleet.
• Deploy adaptive-control and auto-tuning schemes to the entire fleet.
• Implement optimization and sampling based path planning.
• Localize and map the environment using onboard sensors.
• Partner with research, hardware, and deployment teams to diagnose real-world failures.

Required qualifications

• Hands-on experience implementing and tuning low-level controllers (PID, LQR, etc.) on real-world systems.
• Experience formulating and designing optimal and robust control algorithms (robust/stochastic MPC).
• Experience working on manipulation systems and implementing inverse kinematics, inverse dynamics (RNEA) and planning algorithms.
• Experience working with real-time, low-latency systems and profiling and optimizing performance-critical code.
• Experience working with real-world sensors and building estimators, filters, and sensor-fusion pipelines.
• Experience implementing localization and mapping algorithms (SLAM, UKF) for wheeled or legged robots.
• Strong mathematical foundation in linear algebra, calculus, and convex optimization.

About the company

Watney builds and deploys autonomous robotic systems that increase the speed and capacity of buildout, starting with data centers.