Robotics Controls Engineer — Whole-Body Motion

Weave Robotics; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Weave Robotics in San Francisco is seeking a Robotics Software Engineer focused on Controls to translate high-level motion commands into precise, safe robot behavior. You will collaborate with electrical, mechanical, and ML engineers, integrating firmware with custom hardware to enable compliant, force-sensitive motion.

The role emphasizes building real-time control loops, whole-body control strategies, and robust software pipelines for calibration and sensing.

Qualifications

• 3+ years building controllers that ran on real robot hardware.
• Strong understanding of motor control theory with hands-on encoder and sensing experience.
• Proficiency developing embedded software with real-time constraints.
• Experience with embedded interfaces such as SPI, I²C, RS-485, CAN/CAN FD, Ethernet, or EtherCAT.
• Knowledge of embedded safety mechanisms—brownout detection, overcurrent protection, watchdogs, and thermal monitoring.
• Ability to bridge offline tracking plots and real-world performance.

Responsibilities

• Own policy-output-to-joint-commands. Turn action streams into whole-body motion: retiming, smoothing and coordinating both arms, the torso and the base without sacrificing responsiveness.
• Design, implement, and tune hierarchical control systems, including nested feedback control loops.
• Build motor control software from early prototypes through production deployment.
• Build whole-body controllers. Operational-space and impedance control, QP-based whole-body control with contact and joint constraints, and the compliant behaviors that make a bimanual robot safe to work around.
• Architect reliable, high-performance software that meets the timing, safety, and robustness requirements of production robotic systems.
• Build robust pipelines for encoder calibration, current and voltage sensing, filtering, synchronization, and system characterization.

Skills

Robot control on real hardware

Embedded software development

Motor control theory

Encoder calibration & sensing

Embedded interfaces (SPI, I2C, RS-485,

CAN/EtherCAT and Ethernet

Real-time constraints

Thermal monitoring & safety

Performance gap analysis

Tools

Embedded C/C++

RTOS

ROS/ROS2 or similar frameworks

Job description

Weave Robotics in San Francisco is seeking a Robotics Software Engineer focused on Controls to translate high-level motion commands into precise, safe robot behavior. You will collaborate with electrical, mechanical, and ML engineers, integrating firmware with custom hardware to enable compliant, force-sensitive motion.

The role emphasizes building real-time control loops, whole-body control strategies, and robust software pipelines for calibration and sensing.