Principal Robotic Controls Engineer

ABOUT THE ROLE

Own the controls and estimation architecture for a precision laser beam director within a defense technology team. You will take algorithms from modeling and simulation through embedded hardware and field testing, helping deliver accurate tracking against dynamic targets.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Design the control architecture for coarse gimbals and fine steering mirrors, including bandwidth allocation, multi-rate design, and stage handoffs.

- Develop estimators that fuse radar, EO/IR, and inertial data into predicted aimpoints, with latency compensation.

- Implement line-of-sight stabilization and jitter rejection using inertial stabilization, accelerometer feedforward, and adaptive filtering.

- Build and manage pointing error budgets across jitter, bias, latency, and atmospheric effects, then validate precision against moving targets in the field.

- Model plants and identify system dynamics in time and frequency domains, validating models through hardware-in-the-loop testing.

- Analyze robustness, stability margins, sensitivity, and performance under disturbances and parameter variation.

- Integrate fire-control handoffs, engagement sequencing, dwell maintenance, and safety interlocks with partner engineering teams.

- Move algorithms from simulation to embedded hardware, supporting kHz-rate control loops and reviewing controls and sensor integration.

- Serve as a technical anchor and mentor through hands-on engineering contributions.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

- 10 or more years closing loops on precision pointing, tracking, or stabilization systems, including fielded systems with measured performance.

- PhD-level depth in control theory and estimation, or a master's degree with a research-grade record of applying control theory to fielded hardware.

- Strong background in robust control, including H-infinity, mu-synthesis, and LQG, and estimation methods such as Kalman variants, IMM, and nonlinear observers.

- Hands-on experience with microradian-class pointing systems, such as beam directors, fine steering mirrors, gimbaled sensors, laser communication terminals, telescopes, spacecraft, or comparable precision mechatronics.

- Experience with C or C++ control loops on embedded or RTOS platforms, multi-rate and sampled-data design, and real-time hardware-in-the-loop validation.

- Proven system identification and plant modeling experience with real structural dynamics.

- MATLAB/Simulink, C/C++, Python, RTOS, Kalman filtering, or adaptive control experience is relevant.

- Defense or high-energy laser experience, adaptive optics, atmospheric propagation modeling, publications or patents, and ability to obtain a security clearance are additional assets.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

Base salary: $250,000 to $315,000 USD annually. Equity and visa sponsorship details were not provided.

LOCATION

On-site in Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States.