{"id":3882845,"url":"https://alion.io/job/clera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer","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":39,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":6,"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"}},"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":["San Francisco, 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":10,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Design Controls","optional":false},{"name":"MATLAB","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RTOS","optional":false},{"name":"Sensor Fusion","optional":false},{"name":"Simulink","optional":false},{"name":"SLI/SLO/SLA","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-06T18:06:54Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-06","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T20:42:58Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"About the Role\nJoin a defense technology team developing autonomous directed-energy systems. As the senior technical anchor for controls, you will shape precision pointing and tracking architecture, from theory and simulation through real-world hardware testing.\nWhat You'll Do\nDesign control architecture for coarse gimbals and fine steering mirrors, including bandwidth allocation, multi-rate operation, and stage handoffs.\n\nDevelop Kalman, interacting multiple model, and nonlinear filters that fuse radar, EO/IR, and inertial data into latency-compensated aimpoint estimates.\n\nBuild line-of-sight stabilization and jitter-rejection methods, including inertial stabilization, feedforward, and adaptive or notch filtering for structural modes.\n\nAllocate pointing error budgets across jitter, bias, latency, and atmospheric effects, then validate precision performance against dynamic targets in field tests.\n\nModel plants and identify system dynamics for gimbals, mirrors, and structures, using simulation and hardware-in-the-loop validation.\n\nAnalyze stability and robustness under disturbances and parameter variation, and integrate controls with tracking, engagement sequencing, and safety logic.\n\nDeploy control algorithms to embedded targets, collaborate on kilohertz-rate loops, and compare field test results with simulation predictions.\n\nProvide technical review across controls and sensor integration, and mentor engineers through hands-on technical leadership.\n\nWhat We're Looking For\nAt least 10 years of experience closing loops on precision pointing, tracking, or stabilization hardware, with PhD-level depth in control theory and estimation.\n\nProficiency in robust control, including H-infinity, mu-synthesis, and LQG, plus optimal estimation such as Kalman variants, IMM, and nonlinear observers.\n\nExperience shipping C or C++ control loops on embedded or RTOS targets, and working with MATLAB/Simulink and Python.\n\nBackground in sensor fusion, multi-rate and sampled-data design, real-time hardware-in-the-loop validation, system identification, and structural dynamics.\n\nAbility to serve as the controls technical anchor on a small team. Directed-energy or high-energy laser experience and an active security clearance, or ability to obtain one, are advantages.\n\nCompensation & Benefits\nBase salary range: $250,000 to $315,000 annually. Equity and visa sponsorship details were not provided.\nLocation\nOn-site in San Francisco, United States.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2460,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","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":"2026-11-06T18:41:15Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":false,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":47,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"Offered visa sponsorship in 47 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":"2026-11-08T10:45:15+00:00","sources":["Alion: sponsorship offered in the employer's own job adverts (24 months)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":38,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.379,"p_room":1,"age_days":1,"expected_fill_days":6,"reasons":["conf:1","agency","stale_co","velocity","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":315000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/clera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/clera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-09T00:13:35Z","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":540,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-10T00:00:00Z"}},"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"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"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"},{"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"},{"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\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fclera-principal-robotic-controls-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3882845}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"getclera.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3882845},"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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