Senior Robotics Engineer, Controls
Clera · San Francisco · onsite
ABOUT THE ROLE
Join a small defense technology team building autonomous directed-energy systems. As a senior individual contributor, you will own the precision motion controls stack, from system modeling and state estimation through real-time implementation and field validation.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Architect and tune precision pointing and tracking control loops for closed-loop operation at hundreds of hertz.
- Integrate sensor inputs and actuator commands, using state estimation to fuse IMU, encoder, and vision feedback.
- Identify and model gimbal, mount, and actuator dynamics, then tune actuators and compensate for nonlinearities such as backlash, friction, and saturation.
- Characterize structural resonances and develop filtering and compensation approaches.
- Build simulation and hardware-in-the-loop infrastructure to validate controls and reduce the sim-to-real gap.
- Conduct field characterization, document control designs, and establish tuning standards.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
- At least 4 years of robotics experience, including hands-on design and tuning of closed-loop controllers on physical motion hardware.
- Strong grounding in classical and state-space controls, including LQR and MPC, plus practical state estimation using Kalman-family or complementary filters.
- Experience with system identification, frequency-domain tuning, and structural resonance characterization.
- Modern C++ for real-time control, and Python or MATLAB/Simulink for modeling and analysis.
- Experience with servo drives, brushless motors, encoders, and IMUs, and an understanding of latency and jitter in real-time systems.
- Comfort working across mechanical, electrical, and software engineering, and validating controls on actual hardware.
- Experience with gimbals, precision pointing, moving platforms, or target tracking is useful.
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Base salary: $180,000 to $200,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.
LOCATION
On-site in San Francisco, California, with range days.