Robotics & Control Engineer

Rhoda AI; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Rhoda AI is seeking a Robot Control Engineer to develop and maintain control systems for humanoid robots. The role involves writing software to connect hardware to behavior, and you'll be responsible for crucial components like control loops and state estimation.

The ideal candidate has extensive experience in robotics programming, strong software skills in C++, Python, or Rust, and the ability to work with hardware. This position allows for high ownership in a fast-paced environment that impacts the real-world capabilities of robots.

Qualifications

• 1+ years of experience building control software for robotic systems or closely related field.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals in C++, Python, or Rust.
• Hands-on experience with core robotics control: motion planning, control loops, state estimation, or actuator interfaces.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain onboard control software including control loops, state estimation, and actuator interfaces.
• Implement and tune motion planning and control systems.
• Collaborate with AI/ML team to integrate learned control policies onto real hardware.

Skills

C++

Python

Rust

ROS/ROS2

Motion planning

State estimation

Control loops

Actuator interfaces

Job description

At Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possible by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $400M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.

We're looking for a Robot Control Engineer to develop and maintain the control systems that run on our humanoid robots. You'll own the software that connects hardware to behavior — from low-level control loops and actuator interfaces to state estimation and real-world deployment.

What You'll Do

• Develop and maintain onboard control software including control loops, state estimation, and actuator interfaces
• Implement and tune motion planning and control systems — including whole-body control, trajectory optimization, or model predictive control
• Collaborate with the AI/ML team to integrate learned control policies onto real hardware reliably and efficiently
• Contribute to system reliability, fault detection, and recovery logic for robust real-world operation
• Work directly with prototype hardware, debugging discrepancies between simulated and real behavior and iterating on both
• Support bring-up and field testing of new hardware revisions

What We're Looking For

• 1+ years of experience building control software for robotic systems or a closely related field
• Strong software engineering fundamentals in C++, Python, or Rust
• Hands-on experience with core robotics control: motion planning, control loops, state estimation, or actuator interfaces
• Experience with ROS/ROS2 or similar robotics middleware in production or research contexts
• Ability to debug across the full stack — from driver-level issues to control behavior on live hardware
• Comfort working directly with physical hardware in fast-moving, ambiguous environments

Nice to Have (But Not Required)

• Background in whole-body control, trajectory optimization, or model predictive control
• Experience building sim-to-real pipelines for reinforcement learning or imitation learning policy training
• Familiarity with humanoid or legged robot platforms and the unique modeling challenges they present
• Exposure to learned perception or control models and their integration into real-time robot stacks
• Prior work on early-stage hardware programs (prototype or pre-production robots)

Why This Role

• Your code runs on the robot — the control software you write has a direct, physical impact on what our humanoids can do in the real world
• Work at the boundary of hardware and AI, integrating state-of-the‑art control and learned policies onto real robotic systems
• High ownership in a small, fast‑moving team where your contributions shape how the next generation of humanoid robots operate in production