Controls Engineer Mountain View, CA View Role

Formulate Robotics; Mountain View, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Formulate Robotics in California is seeking a Controls Engineer to design and implement the control systems powering our Gen 3 manufacturing platform, translating physical processes into precise, repeatable, and safe control logic.

You will work on motion systems, dosing and dispensing loops, mixing, thermal systems, and safety interlocks, collaborating with hardware, embedded, AI, and cloud teams to build closed-loop systems that perform reliably in real-world conditions.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in control systems engineering or industrial automation.
• Strong foundation in control theory (PID, feedback systems, system stability).
• Experience with motion control, motor drivers, actuators, and sensor feedback systems.
• Comfortable working in real-time or near-real-time environments.
• Ability to analyze noisy real-world signals and design robust control strategies.
• Hands-on debugging mindset - comfortable in lab and production environments.
• High agency and comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
• Experience leveraging modern AI tools to accelerate modeling, tuning, and diagnostics.
• Nice-to-haves: industrial PLCs, robotics systems, chemical/process control, system identification, state-space modeling.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement closed-loop control systems for robotics-driven manufacturing equipment.
• Develop motion control algorithms for motors, actuators, and precision positioning systems.
• Design control strategies for dispensing, mixing, heating, and process stability.
• Implement and tune PID and advanced control loops.
• Work with embedded engineers to integrate control logic into firmware and real-time systems.
• Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to incorporate optimization and learning systems into control architectures.
• Design and validate safety logic and fail-safe mechanisms.
• Conduct system testing, calibration, and performance analysis.
• Continuously refine control performance based on real-world operational data.

Skills

Control theory (PID, feedback)

Motion control

Real-time systems

Robust control analysis

Lab/production debugging

AI-assisted modeling/tuning

High-agency mindset

Tools

Industrial PLCs

Robotics systems

System identification

Job description

We're building the applied AI platform for autonomous industrial batching, combining prompt-to-production automation with a recursive learning system that improves through every formulation and batch, helping usher in a new era of programmable, abundant manufacturing.

About the Role

As a Controls Engineer, you'll design and implement the control systems that power our Gen 3 manufacturing platform. This role sits at the core of our robotics and automation stack - translating physical processes into precise, repeatable, and safe control logic.

You'll work on motion systems, dosing and dispensing loops, mixing processes, thermal systems, and safety interlocks. Your job is to make machines behave predictably in the real world - even under noise, variability, and edge cases.

This is a hands-on role for someone who understands control theory but also cares deeply about implementation details, failure modes, and production reliability. You will collaborate closely with hardware, embedded, AI, and cloud teams to build tightly integrated, closed-loop systems.

This is a full-time role based in California, with in-person collaboration expected in our Mountain View office.

What You'll Do

• Design and implement closed-loop control systems for robotics-driven manufacturing equipment.
• Develop motion control algorithms for motors, actuators, and precision positioning systems.
• Design control strategies for dispensing, mixing, heating, and process stability.
• Implement and tune PID and advanced control loops.
• Work with embedded engineers to integrate control logic into firmware and real-time systems.
• Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to incorporate optimization and learning systems into control architectures.
• Design and validate safety logic and fail-safe mechanisms.
• Conduct system testing, calibration, and performance analysis.
• Continuously refine control performance based on real-world operational data.

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years of experience in control systems engineering or industrial automation.
• Strong foundation in control theory (PID, feedback systems, system stability).
• Experience with motion control, motor drivers, actuators, and sensor feedback systems.
• Comfortable working in real-time or near-real-time environments.
• Ability to analyze noisy real-world signals and design robust control strategies.
• Hands-on debugging mindset - comfortable in lab and production environments.
• High agency and comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
• Experience leveraging modern AI tools to accelerate modeling, tuning, and diagnostics.
• Nice-to-haves: industrial PLCs, robotics systems, chemical/process control, system identification, state-space modeling.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation with equity.
• Ownership over mission-critical control systems in next-generation manufacturing hardware.
• Opportunity to integrate classical control systems with modern AI-driven optimization.
• In-person collaboration with a high-agency engineering team.
• A fast-moving environment where strong builders can have outsized impact.