Robotics Engineer, Manipulation & Control

Primis; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation package

H1B sponsorship

Green Card sponsorship

Market-rate compensation

Job summary

Primis seeks a senior Robotics Engineer to own real-time control and estimation systems for precise robotic manipulation. You will work on hardware-focused closed-loop control, integrating live sensor data into accurate robot arm motion with state estimation, MPC and robust C++ code.

The role emphasizes building real-time software on physical robots, handling uncertainty, latency, and sensor noise while shaping the control stack architecture with a senior technical lens.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of robotics manipulation and control.
• Real-time control and state estimation (MPC, Kalman filters, observability).
• Experience building and running real-time robotic systems on physical hardware.
• Strong understanding of robot arm kinematics, dynamics, trajectory generation and correction.
• Experience with visual servoing or sensor-guided manipulation.
• Strong perception knowledge: geometric/model-based vision, 3D sensing, point-cloud registration and calibration.
• Production C++ is non-negotiable; robust, deterministic real-time software.
• Experience with hard-real-time concepts: deterministic loops, timing budgets, concurrency, thread safety, debugging on hardware.
• Senior technical credibility to influence architecture and the control stack direction.

Responsibilities

• Own the real-time closed loop from sensing to motion, including state estimation, feedback and predictive control, and end-effector trajectory correction.
• Build control systems that maintain accuracy despite uncertainty, sensor noise and latency.
• Make engineering decisions about what can be estimated from sensor data, while designing systems that understand uncertainty and fail safely.
• Build and ship hard-real-time software running on physical robots, not just simulation.
• Work across manipulation, arm kinematics and dynamics, trajectory generation, coordinate frames and calibration.
• Develop sensor-guided and visual servoing systems that connect perception directly to robot control.
• Help shape the technical direction toward learning-based and whole-body control.

Skills

Real-time control

State estimation

Model Predictive Control

Kalman filters

C++

Robot manipulation

Hard real-time

Sensor fusion

Concurrency

Job description

Build robots that move with precision in the real world

We’re looking for a senior Robotics Engineer to take ownership of the real-time control and estimation systems behind highly accurate robotic manipulation.

This is a hands-on, hardware-first role. You’ll work on the closed-loop system that takes live sensor data and turns it into precise robot arm motion, combining state estimation, MPC, trajectory correction and hard real-time C++.

If you’re excited by the challenge of making robots perform reliably in the messy, uncertain conditions of the physical world, this is a chance to have a major technical impact.

What you’ll be doing

• Own the real-time closed loop from sensing to motion, including state estimation, feedback and predictive control, and end-effector trajectory correction.
• Build control systems that maintain accuracy despite uncertainty, sensor noise and latency.
• Make engineering decisions around what can and cannot be estimated from available sensor data, while designing systems that understand uncertainty and fail safely.
• Build and ship hard-real-time software running on physical robots, not just simulation.
• Work across manipulation, arm kinematics and dynamics, trajectory generation, coordinate frames and calibration.
• Develop sensor-guided and visual servoing systems that connect perception directly to robot control.
• Help shape the technical direction toward learning-based and whole-body control.

What we’re looking for

• 7+ years of experience specifically in robotics manipulation and control.
• Deep, first-principles understanding of real-time control and state estimation, including MPC, Kalman filters and observability.
• Proven experience building and running real-time robotic systems on actual physical hardware.
• Strong understanding of robot arm kinematics, dynamics, trajectory generation and correction.
• Experience with visual servoing or sensor-guided manipulation.
• Strong perception knowledge, particularly geometric/model-based vision, 3D sensing, point-cloud registration and calibration.
• Production C++ is non-negotiable - you should be comfortable writing robust, deterministic software for real-time systems.
• Experience with hard-real-time concepts including deterministic loops, timing budgets, concurrency, thread safety and debugging on physical hardware.
• Senior technical credibility - you’ll be expected to influence architecture and help set the direction of the control stack.

A pure robotics background is preferred, particularly if you have spent significant time working on manipulation and control systems.

Why this opportunity?

You won’t be building another simulation or research prototype that stays in the lab.

You’ll be working on real robots doing real physical work, solving challenging problems around perception, control, uncertainty and precision. The goal is to make sophisticated robotic manipulation work reliably in the real world, where hardware is imperfect, sensors are noisy and nothing behaves quite as neatly as it does in simulation.

Location & relocation

The company is offering a compelling relocation package for the right person, including:

• NY/SF market-rate compensation, giving you significantly more purchasing power in Columbus.
• A flexible relocation package based on distance and household size.
• H1B transfer support and Green Card sponsorship.

If you’re interested but haven’t seriously considered Columbus before, an onsite visit can be arranged so you can meet the team and see the environment for yourself.

The bottom line

If your background is real robotics, real hardware, real-time C++ and serious control theory, and you want to own a system that directly determines how a robot moves and performs in the physical world, this could be a great next challenge.

Research indicates that men will apply to a role when they only meet 50-60% of the descriptions, however, when looking at women and other minority groups, they can look for up to a 99% match in order to apply to a role. If you feel you are a fit for our role, please still apply, don’t worry if you don’t tick every single box. We’d still love to hear from you. We encourage underrepresented talent to apply to all our roles & support accessibility needs