{"id":4277309,"url":"https://alion.io/job/clera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2","title":"Principal Robotic Controls Engineer","company":{"id":2706,"name":"Clera","domain":"getclera.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/clera","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":true,"employer_type":"agency","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":80,"open_postings":40,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":6,"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Los Lunas, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":250000,"max":315000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":315000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"MATLAB","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RTOS","optional":false},{"name":"Simulink","optional":false},{"name":"SLI/SLO/SLA","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-13T17:22:18Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-13","last_verified_at":"2026-11-13T19:23:38Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About the Role\nOwn 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.\nWhat You'll Do\nDesign the control architecture for coarse gimbals and fine steering mirrors, including bandwidth allocation, multi-rate design, and stage handoffs.\n\nDevelop estimators that fuse radar, EO/IR, and inertial data into predicted aimpoints, with latency compensation.\n\nImplement line-of-sight stabilization and jitter rejection using inertial stabilization, accelerometer feedforward, and adaptive filtering.\n\nBuild and manage pointing error budgets across jitter, bias, latency, and atmospheric effects, then validate precision against moving targets in the field.\n\nModel plants and identify system dynamics in time and frequency domains, validating models through hardware-in-the-loop testing.\n\nAnalyze robustness, stability margins, sensitivity, and performance under disturbances and parameter variation.\n\nIntegrate fire-control handoffs, engagement sequencing, dwell maintenance, and safety interlocks with partner engineering teams.\n\nMove algorithms from simulation to embedded hardware, supporting kHz-rate control loops and reviewing controls and sensor integration.\n\nServe as a technical anchor and mentor through hands-on engineering contributions.\n\nWhat We're Looking For\n10 or more years closing loops on precision pointing, tracking, or stabilization systems, including fielded systems with measured performance.\n\nPhD-level depth in control theory and estimation, or a master's degree with a research-grade record of applying control theory to fielded hardware.\n\nStrong background in robust control, including H-infinity, mu-synthesis, and LQG, and estimation methods such as Kalman variants, IMM, and nonlinear observers.\n\nHands-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.\n\nExperience 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.\n\nProven system identification and plant modeling experience with real structural dynamics.\n\nMATLAB/Simulink, C/C++, Python, RTOS, Kalman filtering, or adaptive control experience is relevant.\n\nDefense or high-energy laser experience, adaptive optics, atmospheric propagation modeling, publications or patents, and ability to obtain a security clearance are additional assets.\n\nCompensation & Benefits\nBase salary: $250,000 to $315,000 USD annually. Equity and visa sponsorship details were not provided.\nLocation\nOn-site in Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2870,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-13T19:23:38Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":false,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":48,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"Offered visa sponsorship in 48 of its adverts here in 24 months","filings_12m":0,"filings_prev_12m":0,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-12T07:36:15+00:00","sources":["Alion: sponsorship offered in the employer's own job adverts (24 months)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":52,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.516,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":6,"reasons":["conf:0","agency","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-13T20:03:47Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":315000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/clera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/clera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-13T20:03:47Z","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":39980,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"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":2706},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2706"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fclera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"free","price":{"credits":0,"usd":0},"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%2Fclera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"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%2Fclera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2"},{"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/clera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fclera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4277309}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"getclera.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4277309},"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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