{"id":696536,"url":"https://alion.io/job/aureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls","title":"Sr. Robotics Engineer, Controls","company":{"id":669079,"name":"Aurelius Systems","domain":"aureliussystems.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/aureliussystems","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":11,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":72,"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"}},"role":"Robotics","role_family":"Robotics","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":180000,"max":200000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":200000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":4,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"MATLAB","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Sensor Fusion","optional":false},{"name":"Sim-to-Real","optional":false},{"name":"Simulink","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-30T23:17:56Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-30","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T20:25:38Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":127,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":126},"description":"Who We Are:\nAurelius Systems is a VC backed defense tech startup building autonomous, edge deployed directed energy systems for counter-UAS. We build laser weapons to shoot down drones.\nWe're a small team of engineers, former US military operators, and subject matter experts scaling America's directed energy dominance. The first cost effective, reliable and robust laser weapon system.\nOur namesake isn't an accident. Marcus Aurelius wrote about doing the work in front of you, every day, without excuses. Henry Ford didn't wait for permission to reinvent manufacturing.\nThat's how we operate - small team, unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable.\nIn addition to our San Francisco lab, we’ve opened a Detroit manufacturing hub and we field test weekly on our own 400-acre private range.\nThe Role & Your Impact:\nYou'll own the precision motion stack, full stop.\nThe critical gap we're hiring for is a hands-on robotics controls engineer who can iterate fast on real hardware. Someone who can take a model, get it on the hardware, characterize what's actually happening, and tighten the loop. You think in Bode plots and step responses.\nThis is a senior IC role on the controls side. You'll own the architecture and tuning of the precision pointing and tracking control loops, the state estimation behind them, and the closed loop integration with the tracker.\nWhat You'll Own:\nArchitecture and tuning of the precision pointing and tracking control loops\n\nClosed loop tracking from sensor input through actuator command at hundreds of Hz\n\nState estimation across IMU, encoder, and vision based feedback (Kalman filters, complementary filters, sensor fusion)\n\nSystem identification and modeling of the gimbal, mount, and actuator dynamics\n\nActuator tuning, gain scheduling, and compensation for nonlinearities (backlash, friction, saturation)\n\nResonance characterization, notch filtering, and structural compensation\n\nSimulation infrastructure for controls development\n\nHardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure for controls validation\n\nField characterization of the system against real targets at the range\n\nAuthor controls documentation and tuning standards\n\nWhat We're Looking For:\n4+ years of experience in robotics\n\nStrong knowledge of fundamentals: classical controls, state space, LQR, MPC\n\nProven simulation experience and a track record of managing the sim-to-real gap on actual hardware\n\nModern C++ for real time control implementation\n\nPython or MATLAB/Simulink for modeling, system ID, and analysis\n\nState estimation in practice (Kalman, EKF, UKF, complementary filters)\n\nSystem identification and frequency domain tuning\n\nDirect experience with motion control hardware - servo drives, brushless motors, encoders, IMUs\n\nComfortable working at the seam between mechanical, electrical, and software\n\nUnderstanding of latency, jitter, and how they kill control loop performance\n\nNot a fit if: Your controls experience is purely simulation, your real world tuning amounts to changing PID gains in a UI, or you've never had to characterize a resonance, model an actuator, or fight a sensor that lies to you. We need someone who's tuned hardware that fought back.\nNice-to-Haves:\nAdvanced MPC - nonlinear MPC, robust MPC, or real-time NMPC on resource constrained hardware\n\nGimbal, beam director, or precision pointing system experience\n\nAerospace, defense, or directed energy controls background\n\nAdaptive or robust control implementation in production\n\nVision-in-the-loop control (visual servoing, image-based tracking)\n\nHardware-in-the-loop simulation experience\n\nHigh bandwidth sensor pipelines (cameras, radar, IMUs at high rate)\n\nPrior work on a system that had to hit a moving target\n\nEducation:\nMS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or related field is the sweet spot. BS with strong hands-on robotics experience or PhD with a real shipping record both welcome.\nHow You Operate:\nExtreme bias for action. You'd rather tune on hardware tomorrow than model it for a month\n\nRigorous testing mindset. You characterize your own loops before the field does\n\nComfortable with ambiguity and fast, constantly iterating in a startup environment\n\nYour brain only releases dopamine when you're building\n\nYou debug from first principles\n\nClear communicator across mechanical, electrical, optical, and software teams\n\nSelf-directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told\n\nWhy Join Aurelius Systems?\nBuild more in 1 month than most engineers build in 1 year. We field test weekly. Your work goes downrange, not into a filing cabinet.\n\nCareer velocity is real. Erick Brito went from Founding Robotics Engineer to Lead in 12 months. At ~10 engineers, there are no layers between you and impact, or between you and your next title.\n\nWork on a problem that actually matters. Small, cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer. Think infinite magazine, cost-per-shot near zero, scalable to every base, border, facility, truck, and piece of infrastructure.\n\nJoin the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country. California is where the next generation of defense companies are being built. You'll be in the room with the people reshaping how America builds weapons.\n\nHow We Work:\nCore hours are Monday-Friday, 9 to 6. When we're sprinting toward a demo or field test, the team ramps up; nights, weekends, whatever it takes to ship.\nWhen the sprint lands, we ramp down. We don't manufacture intensity for show. We go hard when the mission demands it, and we recover when it doesn't.\nBenefits:\nCompetitive salary + equity\n\nUnited Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage\n\nFlexible 18 days PTO + 5 sick days\n\nTravel to field test events and range days\n\nCovered daily lunches and office snacks + drinks\n\nE-bike / scooter stipend (up to $500)\n\nDirect access to leadership and real ownership over your work\n\nExport Control Notice:\nThis role requires access to export-controlled information or items that require \"U.S. Person\" status. As defined by U.S. law, individuals who are any one of the following are considered to be a \"U.S. Person\": (1) U.S. citizens, (2) legal permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), and (3) certain protected classes of asylees and refugees, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).\nDon't Check Every Box?\nApply anyway. The filter is simple: walk us through a controller you tuned on real hardware where the sim said one thing and reality said another. If you have that story, we want to talk regardless of what your resume says.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6585,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":4,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Air Defense","Defense Manufacturing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T02:06:34Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":26,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.721,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":126,"expected_fill_days":72,"reasons":["conf:0","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":200000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/aureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/aureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-05T00:46:49Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":920,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-06T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":669079},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=669079"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Faureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Faureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Faureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/aureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Faureliussystems-sr-robotics-software-engineer-controls"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":696536}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"aureliussystems.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":696536},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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