Controls Engineer

Reflex Robotics; New York (NY); On-site; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative robotics startup in New York is looking for controls engineers. The role involves developing and controlling advanced automation hardware for manufacturing tasks. Candidates should have real-world motion control experience and proficiency in C++. This position offers high ownership in shaping robotics products and innovative projects, with a potential for significant impact in the automation industry. The company is in an exciting growth phase with solid business prospects.

Qualifications

• Experience controlling real-world hardware and not just in simulation.
• Understanding the entire system, including mechanical assembly details.
• Proficiency in model predictive control and sensor fusion.

Responsibilities

• Join a team to develop advanced robotics technology.
• Shape products from the ground up with high ownership.
• Contribute to building AI-powered systems through control engineering.

Skills

Motion control of real-world hardware

Model predictive control

Nonlinear optimization

Sensor fusion strategies

Robust code writing

Tools

C++

Python

Job description

Company Overview

Reflex Robotics is building affordable ($10k) wheeled humanoid robots to automate dangerous and repetitive tasks in manufacturing and logistics.

We envision a future where intelligent robots are doing all kinds of boring work that people hate doing—loading chicken nuggets into Costco boxes, lifting forty pound bags of dog food at Petco stores, and cleaning up cranberry juice spills in your apartment.

We are a three-year-old startup backed by Khosla Ventures, with $60M/year of revenue lined up pending successful pilots with e-commerce warehouses in 2025.

How Does It Work?

Our robots are designed and built entirely in-house by an engineering team that led development of the Stretch robot at Boston Dynamics and key systems on the Tesla Model S, X, and Y production lines. Reflex robots are high-performance, low-inertia, and optimized for low-cost manufacturing.

We’ve built the best real-time teleoperation system in the world, allowing a remote operator in South America to “play a video game” to control our robots at human-level speeds. This has allowed us to already ship robots with positive unit economics, and enables us to create a powerful human-intervention + RL product feedback loop.

Our system allows us to collect high-quality demonstrations at scale—giving us the proprietary data engine needed to train increasingly capable AI systems. We\'re on track to build the largest robotics dataset in the world, which will serve as an important long-term advantage.

Key Company Beliefs

• High-quality, proprietary robotics data is the next foundation for generational AI companies (like Tesla FSD and ChatGPT).

• Being nerd-sniped by maximizing an engineering metric is way less important than solving our customers’ biggest pain points.

• An insane work ethic is required for outsized success—and you\'ll be rewarded for it.

What We’re Looking For

We are looking for controls engineers to join our team!

We’re still a small team—which means high ownership, high equity, and the chance to shape the product from the ground up.

You should strongly consider applying if:

• You’ve controlled the motion of real-world hardware before, not just in simulation—e.g., nanometer-scale control of EUV lithography machines, or making a quadruped do a backflip

• You like to understand the entire system you’re working with—e.g., you care about details like time-sync between two processors, or the stiffness properties of the mechanical assembly

• You have a good understanding of model predictive control, nonlinear optimization, sensor fusion strategies

• You pride yourself on writing robust code that others can trust for years

We primarily use C++, with some Python for prototyping. We don’t use ROS.

You’d be joining a company that already has a solid core business—with working hardware, delighted customers, and profitable unit economics. Reflex is de-risked enough to see the hazy outlines of success, but still small enough that there’s enormous upside up for grabs.

Come Join Us

This is a rare opportunity to help build a flagship robotics company from the ground up—and to do work that will truly matter, reshaping what people believe is possible in robotics.

We love to see the things you’ve worked on. Have a portfolio or insane project you’ve worked on? Share it. We’re looking for people who push past the status quo, are passionate at work and in their own time—we’re looking for people who want to win.