Senior Robotic Arm Controls Engineer

Niuro; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Niuro in United States designs and deploys multi-DOF robotic arms on humanoid platforms for industrial settings. The role focuses on designing, implementing, and tuning low-level controllers close to hardware, translating trajectories into reliable joint actuation while bridging simulation and real-world execution.

You will work with kinematics, dynamics, motor drivers, and real-time control loops, tackling impedance/admittance and whole-body control challenges.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience developing controls and motion for robotic arms on real hardware.
• Experience with impedance/admittance or whole-body control is preferred.
• Experience with real-time control loops and motor drivers interfaces.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and tune low-level controllers for multi-DOF robotic arms.
• Build real-time control loops and interfaces to motor drivers (EtherCAT, CAN).
• Develop and integrate motion planning for manipulation.
• Work on forward/inverse kinematics, Jacobians, and rigid-body dynamics.
• Debug the gap between simulation and real-world execution.
• Collaborate with perception, learning, and mechanical teams to ensure safe, repeatable arm motion.

Skills

PID control

LQR

Impedance/admittance control

Whole-body control

Kinematics & dynamics

Real-time control experience

Education

BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field

Tools

EtherCAT

CAN Bus

Real-time control systems

Job description

This role focuses on designing, implementing, and tuning low-level controllers for multi-DOF robotic arms deployed on humanoid platforms in industrial environments. You will own the full controls pipeline close to the hardware, translating high-level trajectories into reliable, high-performance joint-level actuation while bridging the gap between simulation and real-world execution. In this position, you will work directly with kinematics, dynamics, motor drivers, and real-time control loops, tackling challenges in impedance, admittance, and whole-body control. Collaborating closely with mechanical, perception, and autonomy engineers, you will ensure robotic arms execute precise, robust, and repeatable manipulation tasks on physical hardware.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and tune low-level controllers for multi-DOF robotic arms, including position, velocity, torque, and impedance/admittance control.
• Build and maintain real-time control loops and interfaces to motor drivers and actuators, including EtherCAT, CAN, and current/torque control.
• Develop and integrate motion planning for manipulation, collision-free planning, trajectory optimization, and retiming.
• Work on forward/inverse kinematics, Jacobians, rigid-body dynamics, system identification, and calibration.
• Get controllers and planners working reliably on physical hardware, debugging the gap between simulation and real-world execution.
• Collaborate with perception, learning, and mechanical teams to turn desired behaviors into smooth, safe, repeatable arm motion.

Requirements

• BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• 4+ years of hands-on experience developing and shipping robotics controls/motion on real hardware, or equivalent research and project experience: roughly BS + 4 years, MS + 2 years, or a PhD in a relevant area.
• Hands-on experience developing controls and/or motion for robotic arms, industrial arms, cobots, or manipulators, such as UR, Franka Emika, KUKA, AgileX, OpenArm, or custom hardware.
• Strong grasp of classical control: PID, LQR, and state-space methods; ideally impedance/admittance or whole-body control. MPC is a plus.
• Experience with motion planning frameworks such as MoveIt, cuRobo, OMPL, TrajOpt, or similar, and an understanding of the underlying algorithms.
• Solid robotics fundamentals: rigid-body kinematics and dynamics, control theory, and real-time systems.
• Proficient in C++ and Python; comfortable in ROS or ROS 2.
• Experience taking control/planning code from simulation onto physical hardware and making it robust.
• Demonstrated hands-on work on physical humanoid robots or closely related robot subsystems (for example robotic arms/manipulators, end effectors/grippers, AMRs/mobile manipulators, torso mechanisms or actuated joints). Direct humanoid experience is preferred; evidence of the individual's actual relevant robot-subsystem contribution is required. Generic industrial, automotive or electronics experience alone is insufficient.
• Work-visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

Skills

Required

C++ Python Robotics Controls Motion Planning Kinematics Dynamics Control Theory Real-Time Systems PID Control LQR

Nice to Have

ROS ROS 2 MoveIt cuRobo OMPL TrajOpt EtherCAT CAN Impedance Control Admittance Control Whole-Body Control Model Predictive Control (MPC) Computer Vision SLAM Calibration Imitation Learning Reinforcement Learning Vision-Language-Action Models Isaac Sim MuJoCo Gazebo Drake Embedded Control Actuator Design

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