Principal Robotic Controls Engineer

About the Role Join a defense technology team developing autonomous directed-energy systems. As the senior technical anchor for controls, you will shape precision pointing and tracking architecture, from theory and simulation through real-world hardware testing. What You'll Do Design control architecture for coarse gimbals and fine steering mirrors, including bandwidth allocation, multi-rate operation, and stage handoffs. Develop Kalman, interacting multiple model, and nonlinear filters that fuse radar, EO/IR, and inertial data into latency-compensated aimpoint estimates. Build line-of-sight stabilization and jitter-rejection methods, including inertial stabilization, feedforward, and adaptive or notch filtering for structural modes. Allocate pointing error budgets across jitter, bias, latency, and atmospheric effects, then validate precision performance against dynamic targets in field tests. Model plants and identify system dynamics for gimbals, mirrors, and structures, using simulation and hardware-in-the-loop validation. Analyze stability and robustness under disturbances and parameter variation, and integrate controls with tracking, engagement sequencing, and safety logic. Deploy control algorithms to embedded targets, collaborate on kilohertz-rate loops, and compare field test results with simulation predictions. Provide technical review across controls and sensor integration, and mentor engineers through hands-on technical leadership. What We're Looking For At least 10 years of experience closing loops on precision pointing, tracking, or stabilization hardware, with PhD-level depth in control theory and estimation. Proficiency in robust control, including H-infinity, mu-synthesis, and LQG, plus optimal estimation such as Kalman variants, IMM, and nonlinear observers. Experience shipping C or C++ control loops on embedded or RTOS targets, and working with MATLAB/Simulink and Python. Background in sensor fusion, multi-rate and sampled-data design, real-time hardware-in-the-loop validation, system identification, and structural dynamics. Ability to serve as the controls technical anchor on a small team. Directed-energy or high-energy laser experience and an active security clearance, or ability to obtain one, are advantages. Compensation & Benefits Base salary range: $250,000 to $315,000 annually. Equity and visa sponsorship details were not provided. Location On-site in San Francisco, United States.