Robot Controls Engineer

Rhoda Ai
Palo Alto, US
Career-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Best suited to mid-level engineers with hands-on robotics control experience working in fast-moving hardware/AI integration environments.

Best fit for

  • Engineers who thrive debugging across hardware and software stacks in ambiguous settings.
    — “Ability to debug across the full stack
  • Candidates with production-grade robotics middleware expertise beyond academic projects.
    — “Experience with ROS/ROS2 or similar robotics middleware in production
  • Developers comfortable iterating on physical hardware with rapid prototype cycles.
    — “Work directly with prototype hardware, debugging discrepancies

Things to consider

  • Onsite hardware work in Palo Alto with field testing requirements.
    — “Support bring-up and field testing of new hardware revisions
  • Integration work spans low-level control loops to AI policy deployment.
    — “from low-level control loops and actuator interfaces

How to stand out

  • Showcase specific sim-to-real transfer challenges you've solved in past projects.
    — “debugging discrepancies between simulated and real behavior
  • Highlight humanoid or legged platform experience even if not required.
    — “Familiarity with humanoid or legged robot platforms
  • Demonstrate how you've hardened control systems for real-world reliability.
    — “system reliability, fault detection, and recovery logic
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · TeamLevel · Mid Level

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • robust control systems
  • reliable robot operation
  • integration of learned policies
Typical background
robotics controlsoftware engineering

Skills & requirements

Required

Robot Control SoftwareMotion PlanningControl LoopsState EstimationActuator InterfacesRos/ros2

Preferred

Whole-body ControlTrajectory OptimizationModel Predictive ControlReinforcement LearningImitation Learning

Stack & domain

C++PythonRustRos/ros2Motion PlanningControl LoopsState EstimationActuator InterfacesRoboticsAi/mlHardware DevelopmentManufacturing Scale-up

About the role

Original posting from Rhoda Ai via Ashby

At Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possible by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $400M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.

We're looking for a Robot Control Engineer to develop and maintain the control systems that run on our humanoid robots. You'll own the software that connects hardware to behavior — from low-level control loops and actuator interfaces to state estimation and real-world deployment.

What You'll Do

  • Develop and maintain onboard control software including control loops, state estimation, and actuator interfaces
  • Implement and tune motion planning and control systems — including whole-body control, trajectory optimization, or model predictive control
  • Collaborate with the AI/ML team to integrate learned control policies onto real hardware reliably and efficiently
  • Contribute to system reliability, fault detection, and recovery logic for robust real-world operation
  • Work directly with prototype hardware, debugging discrepancies between simulated and real behavior and iterating on both
  • Support bring-up and field testing of new hardware revisions

What We're Looking For

  • 4+ years of experience building control software for robotic systems or a closely related field
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals in C++, Python, or Rust
  • Hands-on experience with core robotics control: motion planning, control loops, state estimation, or actuator interfaces
  • Experience with ROS/ROS2 or similar robotics middleware in production or research contexts
  • Ability to debug across the full stack — from driver-level issues to control behavior on live hardware
  • Comfort working directly with physical hardware in fast-moving, ambiguous environments

Nice to Have (But Not Required)

  • Background in whole-body control, trajectory optimization, or model predictive control
  • Experience building sim-to-real pipelines for reinforcement learning or imitation learning policy training
  • Familiarity with humanoid or legged robot platforms and the unique modeling challenges they present
  • Exposure to learned perception or control models and their integration into real-time robot stacks
  • Prior work on early-stage hardware programs (prototype or pre-production robots)

Why This Role

  • Your code runs on the robot — the control software you write has a direct, physical impact on what our humanoids can do in the real world
  • Work at the boundary of hardware and AI, integrating state-of-the-art control and learned policies onto real robotic systems
  • High ownership in a small, fast-moving team where your contributions shape how the next generation of humanoid robots operate in production

Source: Rhoda Ai careers (Ashby)

Similar roles