Apptronik
Controls Engineer - Actuation
Austin, TX · Full-time · Posted Sep 11, 2026
- Experience
- BS plus 4 years of relevant experience; MS plus 2 years; or a PhD in a related field.
- Education
- BS or MS in Robotics, ME, EE, CS, or a related field; or PhD in a related field.
About the job
Own actuator simulation models and low-level controls, from hardware characterization and system identification through validation, tuning, and deployment on robots.
What you'll do
- Develop high-fidelity actuator models and design, tune, and deploy actuator-level controls on hardware.
- Run hardware characterization and system-identification experiments; validate simulation-to-real fidelity.
- Build Python/C++ tools and support hardware bring-up in collaboration with Controls, Firmware, and Simulation teams.
What they ask for
- Strong C++, including extending simulator or physics-engine codebases.
- Grounding in motor electromechanics and classical control, including torque/current control and frequency-domain analysis.
- Hands-on actuator or servo control and system identification on real hardware.
- Proficiency in Python and experience shipping maintainable code under Git.
Nice to have
- Experience with dynamometers, motor test stands, lab instrumentation, thermal modeling, gearbox characterization, embedded control, robotics simulators, or Docker/GPU/cloud infrastructure.
- Humanoid or legged-robot experience.
Tools
C++, Python, Git, MuJoCo, Isaac Sim/Lab, Brax, Docker
AI focus
The company develops AI-powered humanoid robots; this role supports actuator modeling and control that contribute to robot performance and sim-to-real fidelity.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative