Physical Intelligence
Controls Engineer
San Francisco · On-site · Full-time · Posted Jan 7, 2026
About the job
Designs and implements control algorithms, real-time loops, models, and robotic subsystems to make PI’s robots stable, predictable, and safe.
What you'll do
- Design and implement control algorithms; build and validate physical and inverse dynamics models.
- Develop real-time control loops and integrate, tune, and debug robotic platforms and sensor/actuator subsystems.
- Collaborate with research, hardware, platform, and operations teams on robot bring-up, testing, and R&D.
What they ask for
- Deep understanding of model-based control algorithms and inverse dynamics.
- Proficiency in Python and C++, including firmware-adjacent development.
- Ability to validate control approaches in simulation and transfer them to hardware; skill in writing and tuning real-time loops.
- Hands-on electromechanical debugging capability and familiarity with embedded communication protocols.
Nice to have
- Background in manipulation or mobile robotic platforms.
- Exposure to robot learning or learned-policy integration; ability to design or refine custom actuator or sensor hardware.
Tools
PID, LQR, MPC, Python, C++, CAN, SPI, I2C
AI focus
Develops real-time control loops, including neural-network-driven control, and may integrate learned policies into control stacks.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative