Controls Engineer — Actuation & Sim-to-Real Robotics

Socket.dev; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Apptronik is building robots for the real world — to improve human quality of life and help solve the ever-increasing labor shortage.

As a Controls Engineer – Actuation on our Controls team, you will own both the actuator models that make our simulation trustworthy and the actuator-level control that runs on real hardware — closing the loop from bench characterization and system identification, through simulator integration, to controller design, tuning, and deployment.

Qualifications

• BS in Robotics, ME, EE, CS or related field with 4+ years of experience.
• MS in related field with 2+ years of experience; PhD accepted.
• Experience in humanoid or legged-robot projects is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop high-fidelity actuator models in simulation.
• Design, tune, and deploy actuator-level control for hardware.
• Run hardware test campaigns to characterize actuator behavior.
• Apply system identification to extract trustworthy models from data.
• Validate sim-to-real fidelity for models and controllers.
• Build Python/C++ tooling for experiment automation and simulation integration.
• Collaborate with Controls, Firmware, and Simulation teams.

Skills

C++ programming

Motor electromechanics

System identification

Python

Control theory

Git version control

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

BS in Robotics, ME, EE, CS

MS/PhD in related field optional

Tools

MuJoCo

Isaac Sim

Brax

Docker with GPU

Job description

Apptronik is building robots for the real world — to improve human quality of life and help solve the ever-increasing labor shortage.

As a Controls Engineer – Actuation on our Controls team, you will own both the actuator models that make our simulation trustworthy and the actuator-level control that runs on real hardware — closing the loop from bench characterization and system identification, through simulator integration, to controller design, tuning, and deployment.