Controls Engineer (Actuation)

Join Apptronik, a company dedicated to building robots that improve human quality of life and address the labor shortage. As a Controls Engineer - Actuation, you will be responsible for developing and maintaining high-fidelity actuator models, designing and deploying actuator-level control, and validating sim-to-real fidelity. You will work closely with the Controls, Firmware, and Simulation teams, and have a strong background in motor electromechanics, system identification, and C++/Python engineering.

Hearing and speech to communicate

Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain high-fidelity actuator models in simulation, capturing the physical behaviors that affect real-world performance.
• Design, tune, and deploy actuator-level control, including 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.
• Comfortable working cross-functionally with controls engineers — focused on how your models and controllers get used, not just whether they fit the data
• Preferred: experience with dynamometers, motor test stands, and lab instrumentation; motor thermal modeling and gearbox efficiency / backlash characterization; real-time actuator communication protocols and embedded / firmware control; a modern robotics simulator (MuJoCo, Isaac Sim/Lab, Brax) and sim-to-real validation workflows; and Docker with GPU/cloud experiment infrastructure
• Hands-on system identification and modeling: structured experiment design and model fitting from real data that feeds both simulation and control
• 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)

Requirements

• Strong C++, including comfort extending a simulator or physics-engine codebase — not just consuming one through a Python interface
• Proficiency in Python (test automation, data analysis, tooling) and a track record shipping maintainable code under Git in a fast-moving R&D environment
• Hands-on actuator or servo control on real hardware: designing, tuning, and validating low-level controllers, informed by system identification
• 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
• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
• Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times

Preferred

• Prior humanoid or legged-robot experience is strongly preferred