Robotics Control Engineer - Whole Body Control

XDOF; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

XDOF in San Francisco is seeking a Robotics Controls Engineer to develop high-performance control systems for dexterous manipulators and humanoid robots. You will ensure safe, precise, and repeatable motion for teleoperation and autonomous runs across diverse tasks.

Ideal candidates bring hands-on controller development on real robotic systems and strong C++/Python skills in real-time settings. This is a fast-paced, 0→1 environment at a cutting-edge robotics frontier.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree (or equivalent) in robotics, mechanical/ electrical engineering, computer science, or related field.
• Strong fundamentals in robot dynamics, kinematics, and feedback control.
• Hands-on experience implementing controllers on real robotic systems, not just in simulation.
• Strong C++ and/or Python skills with comfort in real-time robotics systems.

Responsibilities

• Implement joint-space and Cartesian impedance/torque control for 7+ DoF robotic arms.
• Build whole-body control (WBC) for humanoids with mobile bases, arms, and actuated torsos.
• Design optimization-based controllers: QP formulations, inverse dynamics, task/null-space control, redundancy resolution.
• Develop collision-aware motion and control, including self-collision avoidance and environment constraints.
• Implement and integrate real-time control software on physical robots from simulation through hardware deployment.
• Tune and validate controller performance across diverse manipulation and locomotion tasks.
• Collaborate with data collection operators and hardware teams to diagnose and resolve control-related failures during teleoperation and autonomous runs.

Skills

Robotics degree

Robot dynamics & controls

C++ / Python

Real-time robotics

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in robotics, EE, CS

Job description

At XDOF, we’re at an inflection point. Frontier labs are racing to build general‑purpose robots, and high‑quality training data is the bottleneck. We’re building the foundation behind the foundation models — the data collection systems, operational capability, exabyte‑scale data warehouse, and software toolchain — to help our partners drive the field forward.

Great data starts with great hardware behavior. We’re looking for a Robotics Controls Engineer to build the high‑performance control systems that make our dexterous manipulators and humanoid robots move safely, precisely, and repeatably — because every teleoperation session, every collection run, and every downstream model depends on robots that respond exactly as commanded.

What You’ll Do

Controls engineers are the bridge between robot hardware and reliable, high‑quality motion. Sample projects include:

• implementing joint‑space and Cartesian impedance / torque control for 7+ DoF robotic arms
• building whole‑body control (WBC) for highly redundant humanoids with mobile bases, arms, and actuated torsos
• designing optimization‑based controllers: QP formulations, inverse dynamics, task/null‑space control, and redundancy resolution
• developing collision‑aware motion and control, including self‑collision avoidance and environment constraints
• implementing and integrating real‑time control software on physical robots, from simulation through hardware deployment
• tuning and validating controller performance across diverse manipulation and locomotion tasks
• working closely with data collection operators and hardware teams to diagnose and resolve control‑related failure modes during teleoperation and autonomous runs

About You

Baseline skills:

• bachelor’s or master’s degree (or equivalent experience) in robotics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field
• strong fundamentals in robot dynamics, kinematics, and feedback control
• hands‑on experience implementing controllers on real robotic systems, not just in simulation
• strong C++ and/or Python, and comfort working with real‑time robotics systems

You might be a good fit if you:

• have experience with whole‑body control, operational‑space control, MPC, or optimization‑based control
• come from a background in humanoid robotics, manipulation, legged robotics, or advanced industrial robot control
• have worked on real‑time embedded control software and understand the constraints of deploying to physical hardware
• are very comfortable working in 0→1 environments
• are mission‑driven and passionate about robotics: work at XDOF is fast‑paced and constant. We hope you love what you’re going to be doing, because you’ll be doing a lot of it!