Apptronik
Controls Engineer - Actuation
Austin, TX
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About the role
- ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES or KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES
- Strong C++, including comfort extending a simulator or physics-engine codebase - not just consuming one through a Python interface.
- Hands-on actuator or servo control on real hardware: designing, tuning, and validating low-level controllers, informed by system identification.
Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain high-fidelity actuator models in simulation, capturing the physical behaviors (friction, compliance, thermal, torque and current limits) that meaningfully affect real-world performance.
- Design, tune, and deploy actuator-level control - closed-loop torque and current control and the low-level control that turns commands into reliable joint behavior on hardware.
- Design and run hardware test campaigns to characterize actuator behavior and extract the parameters that keep both the models and the controllers accurate.
- Apply system identification to extract trustworthy physical models from experimental data, and use those models to inform controller design and gain selection.
- Build and maintain robust Python/C++ tooling for experiment automation, model extraction, controller tuning, and simulator integration.
- Support hardware bring-up and deployment, translating validated models and controllers into real robot configuration.
- Deep grounding in motor electromechanics and classical control - closed-loop torque/current control, controller design and tuning, and frequency-domain analysis (e.g. Bode plots, stability margins).
- Hands-on system identification and modeling: structured experiment design and model fitting from real data that feeds both simulation and control.
- Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots to support humanity in every facet of life.
Requirements
- Proficiency in Python (test automation, data analysis, tooling) and a track record shipping maintainable code under Git in a fast-moving R&D environment.
- Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times
Nice to have
- BS in Robotics, ME, EE, CS, or a related field + 4 years of relevant experience
- MS in a related field + 2 years of relevant experience
- or a PhD in a related field.
- Prior humanoid or legged-robot experience is strongly preferred.
Benefits
- Our flagship humanoid robot, Apollo, is built to collaborate thoughtfully with people, starting with critical industries such as manufacturing and logistics, with future applications in healthcare, the home, and beyond.
This listing is sourced directly from Apptronik's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.