Control Systems Engineer

American Terawatt•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

American Terawatt is building an industrial electric grid for the United States, designing and deploying advanced power transmission systems for large industrial loads. Its network is based on HVDC transmission and standardized, modular terminals that natively integrate energy storage. The Control Systems Engineer will develop, test, and deploy control software for HVDC terminals and the transmission network. This hands-on individual contributor role owns key control software subsystems, validation, and commissioning support while contributing to the broader terminal and network-level control architecture. The engineer works with the Principal Power Systems Control Architect, power systems engineers, and the R&D team, and reports directly to the Principal Power Systems Control Architect. The role may grow into broader system-level and architectural ownership as the company scales. Early success includes learning the terminal control architecture and assigned subsystems, setting up development and simulation environments, running baseline tests, and taking ownership of an initial controls task during the first month. By six months, the engineer is expected to independently own a key subsystem through development, testing, and release; validate performance and reliability through simulation and available SIL/HIL testing; contribute to an integration or commissioning milestone; and improve testing, CI/CD, and issue-tracking processes.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
At least 3 years of commercial engineering experience designing, implementing, and delivering control systems in safety-critical domains such as aerospace, robotics, or EVs.
Experience developing and validating controls using simulation tools such as MATLAB/Simulink or PLECS.
In-depth knowledge of control theory fundamentals, including feedback/feedforward control, state estimation, PID tuning, and stability analysis.
Experience validating control systems on hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and/or software-in-the-loop (SIL) platforms, such as RTDS, OPAL-RT, or similar.
Experience with version control, CI/CD pipelines, and software development best practices in an embedded systems or controls context.
Strong debugging and root-cause analysis skills across software, firmware, and hardware boundaries.

Nice To Haves

Master's or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Controls, or Power Systems.
Exposure to real-time embedded control systems development, such as C/C++ on RTOS or bare-metal platforms.
Exposure to electromagnetic transient analysis using tools such as PSCAD or EMTP.
Experience with PSSE and PSLF transmission grid simulation tools.
Experience with power electronics control, including inverters, converters, or rectifiers, ideally on Voltage Source Converter (VSC) HVDC systems.
Exposure to grid-forming and grid-following inverter control strategies.
Experience with distributed or networked control systems.
Exposure to version control such as Git and CI/CD concepts.

Responsibilities

Own key control software subsystems end-to-end, including development, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
Contribute to the design of the broader terminal and network-level control architecture.
Work with the power systems engineering team to support power delivery from terminals and across the HVDC transmission network.
Verify control-system performance and robustness before deployment.
Participate in in-situ commissioning of controls software for deployments.
Maintain and improve controls software development pipelines, including CI/CD and issue tracking.
Support the planning and execution of critical company programs.
Validate control performance and reliability through simulation and available SIL/HIL testing, and resolve issues before deployment.

Benefits

Competitive compensation package, including salary and equity, commensurate with experience.
Medical, dental, and vision coverage, including 75% coverage for dependents and spouses.
Up to $300/month reimbursement for gym and wellness expenses, or Bay Club membership for San Francisco-based employees.
Lunch provided daily when working from an office.
Unlimited PTO with manager approval.
Company-wide office closures for the July 4 week and one week in December.
Laptop of choice provided.
Convenient San Francisco office location on the Embarcadero, near public transit.
Pre-tax transit benefit.
Employee contribution 401(k) program.