Senior Whole-Body Robot Controls Engineer (Real-Time)

Gram Games; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation bonus

Health coverage

Equity

Job summary

Gram Games in San Francisco Bay Area seeks a senior controls engineer to design and implement real-time, whole-body controllers for insectoid machines. You will develop control-oriented models, system-identification methods, and hardware-in-the-loop environments, then validate the controller on physical hardware.

The role emphasizes C++ and Python, with emphasis on stability, latency, and safety in a production-like setting.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience developing feedback control for multi-DOF nonlinear systems.
• Strong C++ and Python; knowledge of rigid-body dynamics and numerical methods.
• Hands-on experience with a controls/dynamics stack (Drake/Pinocchio/MuJoCo/ROS 2 Control/Eigen).

Responsibilities

• Design whole-body controllers coordinating motion and contact forces across coupled DOFs.
• Implement real-time control software in C++ with timing, stability, saturation and fault handling.
• Develop control-oriented models and system-identification experiments to improve fidelity.
• Integrate state estimation, trajectory generation, embedded systems, and safety logic into a single control path.
• Define envelopes for tracking error, stability, disturbance rejection, latency, and recovery.
• Build controller simulations, hardware-in-the-loop tests, and physical-machine tests to reproduce failures and prevent regressions.
• Use test evidence to distinguish controller defects from estimation error, unmodeled dynamics, or actuator limits.

Skills

C++ programming

Python programming

Rigid-body dynamics

Optimization

Numerical methods

Control theory

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, controls, or applied mathematics

Tools

Drake

Pinocchio

MuJoCo

ROS 2 Control

Eigen

Job description

Gram Games in San Francisco Bay Area seeks a senior controls engineer to design and implement real-time, whole-body controllers for insectoid machines. You will develop control-oriented models, system-identification methods, and hardware-in-the-loop environments, then validate the controller on physical hardware.

The role emphasizes C++ and Python, with emphasis on stability, latency, and safety in a production-like setting.