Senior Robotics Engineer, Controls

About the Role Join a small engineering team developing autonomous systems in the defense technology sector. As a senior individual contributor, you will own the precision motion controls stack, from control-loop architecture and state estimation to integration and validation on real hardware. What You'll Do Design and tune precision pointing and tracking control loops, including closed-loop operation from sensor input to actuator commands at hundreds of hertz. Develop state estimation and sensor fusion using IMU, encoder, and vision feedback. Identify and model gimbal, mount, and actuator dynamics, and compensate for resonance, backlash, friction, saturation, and other nonlinearities. Build and maintain controls simulation and hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure to validate designs and reduce the sim-to-real gap. Integrate controls with tracking systems and characterize performance on physical hardware in laboratory and field settings. Document controls architecture, tuning approaches, and engineering standards. What We're Looking For At least 4 years of robotics experience, including hands-on design and tuning of closed-loop controllers on motion hardware such as servo drives, brushless motors, encoders, and IMUs. Strong grounding in classical and state-space control, including LQR and MPC, with experience applying control methods to physical systems. Practical state-estimation experience, such as Kalman, EKF, UKF, or complementary filters, and sensor fusion on hardware. Experience with system identification, frequency-domain tuning, resonance characterization, and real-time control-loop latency and jitter. Modern C++ for real-time control, plus Python or MATLAB/Simulink for modeling, simulation, and analysis. Experience validating simulations against real hardware and working across mechanical, electrical, and software disciplines. Background in precision motion, gimbals, target tracking, aerospace, or other related control systems is valuable. Compensation & Benefits Base salary: $180,000 to $200,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available. Location On-site in San Francisco, California.