Senior ML Controls Engineer — Self-Driving Innovation

Waabi; Kentucky; On-site; USD 241,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity incentives

Annual performance bonus

Competitive benefits

Job summary

Waabi in the United States is seeking a Senior ML/Robotics Engineer to design data-driven control approaches for autonomous driving. You will develop learned models and integrate them into closed-loop simulation to advance safe self-driving at scale.

The role requires deep expertise in control theory and ML with hands-on deployment on hardware-in-the-loop, and you will work with a multidisciplinary AI-first team on end-to-end ownership, experimentation, and robust evaluation.

Qualifications

• MS/PhD or Bachelor's with 4+ years industry experience in Robotics, Controls, Mechanical/Electrical Eng, CS or similar field.
• Demonstrated depth in control theory and dynamic systems (e.g., MPC, optimal control, state estimation, system identification, kinematic and dynamic vehicle modeling).
• Hands-on experience applying machine learning to a physical system, with real hardware in the loop rather than simulation.
• Production-quality coding skill in Python and C++, and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
• Solid problem solving skills using linear algebra, optimization, statistics & probability.
• Ability to rapidly prototype and test new algorithms, and to design experiments that prove their effectiveness.
• Open-minded and collaborative team player with willingness to help others.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop data-driven and machine-learned approaches to vehicle control problems, bringing modern ML to a domain traditionally solved with classical methods.
• Develop learned models of vehicle behavior and dynamics, and integrate them into the closed-loop simulation.
• Apply machine learning to improve how the controller adapts across vehicles and operating conditions.
• Be part of a team of multidisciplinary Engineers and Research Scientists using an AI-first approach to enable safe self-driving at scale.
• Own problems end to end, from conceptualization and offline experimentation through simulation and on-vehicle validation.
• Build the data pipelines, evaluation metrics, and tooling needed to measure whether a learned approach outperforms the classical baseline.
• Participate and share ideas in technical and architecture discussions, helping define how learning and classical control coexist in a safety-critical stack.

Skills

control theory & dynamic systems

machine learning for physical systems

Python & C++ coding

linear algebra & optimization

rapid prototyping

team collaboration

self-driving passion

Education

MS/PhD or Bachelor's with 4+ years of industry experience

Tools

PyTorch

Job description

Waabi in the United States is seeking a Senior ML/Robotics Engineer to design data-driven control approaches for autonomous driving. You will develop learned models and integrate them into closed-loop simulation to advance safe self-driving at scale.

The role requires deep expertise in control theory and ML with hands-on deployment on hardware-in-the-loop, and you will work with a multidisciplinary AI-first team on end-to-end ownership, experimentation, and robust evaluation.