Senior Robotics Controls Engineer — Whole-Body & Learning

Socket.dev; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Apptronik is building robots for the real world — to improve human quality of life and help solve the labor shortage.

As a Staff Software Engineer – Humanoid Controls, you will be a senior technical force multiplier on our Motion Control & Planning team — raising the quality of our robotics stack and tackling the hardest problems across whole-body control for wheeled and biped platforms, plus learning-based hand control, mobile manipulation, and teleoperation.

Qualifications

• Deep robotics fundamentals: kinematics, dynamics, state estimation, and optimization/control theory.
• Proven expertise in whole-body control (WBC/OSC, QP-based control, or MPC) for floating-base or mobile systems.
• Hands-on experience with learning-based control / reinforcement learning in robotics (simulation-based).
• Breadth across mobile manipulation, dexterity/hand control, and teleoperation.
• Strong software engineering: real-time C++ and Python for robotic systems.
• Experience delivering production-grade controllers on real hardware.
• Preferred: shipping controllers to production fleets; safety-critical / certified software (ISO 13849, 10218, IEC 61508).

Responsibilities

• Raise the quality of the overall controls stack — architecture, algorithms, real-time performance, testing, and maintainability.
• Advance whole-body control across platforms — wheeled-base and biped — coordinating base with upper-body manipulation.
• Explore high-impact problems — learning-based hand control, mobile manipulation, teleoperation, and estimation.
• Translate model-based and learning-based methods into robust capabilities from simulation to hardware bring-up.
• Expand performance envelope — speed, payload, reliability, and safety with measurable improvements.
• Set technical direction across the controls stack and align adjacent teams.
• Mentor engineers through design/code reviews and best practices.
• Collaborate with hardware, systems, and RL teams to diagnose system-level issues.

Skills

Robotics fundamentals

Whole-body control

Learning-based control

Real-time C++

Python for robotics

Production-grade controllers

Safety-critical software

Education

MS or PhD in Robotics/CS/EE/ME

8+ years in robot controls (or 4+ with PhD)

Job description

Apptronik is building robots for the real world — to improve human quality of life and help solve the labor shortage.

As a Staff Software Engineer – Humanoid Controls, you will be a senior technical force multiplier on our Motion Control & Planning team — raising the quality of our robotics stack and tackling the hardest problems across whole-body control for wheeled and biped platforms, plus learning-based hand control, mobile manipulation, and teleoperation.