Senior Motor Controls Engineer, Aerospace Embedded

Joby Aviation; Sacramento (CA); On-site; USD 155,000 - 213,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid time off

Healthcare benefits

401(k) plan with company match

Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Job summary

Joby Aviation seeks an experienced Mechanical/Controls Engineer to lead motor control architecture for electric aircraft. The role collaborates with hardware, mechanical, integration, and flight-testing teams to design, develop, test and improve system-level motor control behaviors.

You will work on sensorless and sensor-based PMSM control, advanced inverter PWM, fault detection, and real-time simulation using MATLAB/Simulink, with C/C++ interfaces and hardware-in-the-loop validation.

Qualifications

• B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering or relevant field; 10+ years of related experience across mechanical, electrical, computer, and robotics/mechatronics.
• Experience with actuation systems and/or servo control on safety critical applications.
• Experience developing embedded applications in C/C++, MATLAB Simulink model-based design for controls development.
• Experience with basic electronics debugging tools: oscilloscope, logic analyzer, power analyzer.
• Basic understanding of version control technologies.
• Experience with PIL/HIL verification/debugging.
• Experience creating mathematical models of servo systems for system identification and simulations.
• Knowledge of electro-mechanical systems focusing on interactions between electrical and mechanical components.
• Ability to be onsite regularly in San Carlos, CA.

Responsibilities

• Sensored and sensorless control of permanent magnet synchronous motors.
• Advanced inverter PWM, position/velocity estimation, current control, efficiency optimization.
• Develop fault detection, isolation, and reconfiguration logic for safety-critical systems.
• Closed-loop position control of servo actuation systems with redundant position sensors.
• Optimize motor controls using MATLAB Simulink.
• Develop wrappers/interfaces for MATLAB Simulink code in C/C++.
• Ensure systems meet performance requirements via control development, simulation, and hardware testing.
• Oversee dynamometer testing and data interpretation for control development.
• Tune and calibrate complete systems on dynamometers, test stands, and aircraft.
• Unit-tests for build environment, subsystem validation, integration, flight testing, and HIL tests.
• Decompose system requirements to software requirements.
• Develop system-level actuator models and integrate with inverters/servo controls.

Skills

Servo control

Embedded C/C++

MATLAB/Simulink

Oscilloscope

Logic analyzer

Power analyzer

Version control

PIL/HIL

System identification

Electro-mechanical

Onsite availability

Education

B.S. Mechanical Engineering

Tools

Git

Job description

Joby Aviation seeks an experienced Mechanical/Controls Engineer to lead motor control architecture for electric aircraft. The role collaborates with hardware, mechanical, integration, and flight-testing teams to design, develop, test and improve system-level motor control behaviors.

You will work on sensorless and sensor-based PMSM control, advanced inverter PWM, fault detection, and real-time simulation using MATLAB/Simulink, with C/C++ interfaces and hardware-in-the-loop validation.