Controls Simulation Engineer

Intramotev • St. Louis, MO

6d • $90,000 - $110,000 • Onsite

About The Position

At Intramotev, we are dedicated to revolutionizing the freight industry by liberating tons of freight from congested highways, reducing carbon emissions, and enhancing transportation efficiency. We are deploying self-propelled battery-electric railcars and vehicles to transform freight logistics and bring innovation to our rail network. By helping us make rail competitive with trucking, you can contribute to work that matters in solving big societal problems like reducing emissions, improving safety, and minimizing road congestion. Based in St. Louis, MO, we are committed to promoting industrial revitalization, saving lives, and minimizing the environmental impact of trucking and transportation. We actively foster a work environment for every teammate that's welcoming, respectful, and inclusive, with great opportunities for professional growth. Find your future with us.

We are seeking a Controls Simulation Engineer to design, build, and own the simulation and test framework our controls and motor-control teams use to test, validate, and iterate on control software for our self-propelled battery-electric railcars and vehicles. Today, control-software changes are validated on hardware and in the field; you will build the software-in-the-loop environment that runs the real control modules — consumed at pinned commits in a reproducible, containerized setup — against scripted scenarios fed by trackfiles and site-server messages, and checks automatically that the modules respond correctly before anything reaches a train.

This is a build-the-tool role, grounded in strong software engineering and a working understanding of control systems. Your first assignment is a well-scoped ~3-month framework prototype; the role continues as the framework's long-term owner through V2 — log-data playback from field recordings, message-layer fault injection, and an eventual path toward hardware-in-the-loop.

This is a full-time, 100% in-office role based in St. Louis, MO. You'll work within a team of 3–10 engineers.

Requirements

• At least a Bachelor's Degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Controls, or a related technical field.
• 2–5 years of experience building simulation, test-infrastructure, or engineering-tooling software as an individual contributor.
• Strong software engineering skills in Python and/or C++ — able to design and ship a maintainable internal simulation and tooling application, not just prototype scripts.
• Containerization and reproducible environments — Docker (or equivalent), dependency pinning, and single-config bootstrap; comfortable making "clone, set config, run one command" actually true.
• Experience with message-based systems — protobuf or similar serialized message formats, feeding message streams into software under test at controlled rates.
• Ability to build test-scenario definition and regression infrastructure — defining scenarios, establishing expected and pass/fail criteria, and comparing runs across software versions.
• UI development experience — shipped UI work in a modern framework; able to build the Flutter-based visualization and control UI (Flutter itself is learnable).
• A working understanding of control systems — enough to exercise closed-loop control logic and reason about whether module behavior matches the architecture; deep plant-modeling expertise is not required.
• Experience working with real measured or log data as simulation input — ingesting, time-aligning, and replaying recorded signals such as sensor traces and logged trip data.
• Local to the St. Louis, MO area (or already relocating on your own) — this role is on-site day one and needs a quick start; relocation assistance is not offered.
• Authorized to work in the United States, including F-1 OPT (Optional Practical Training). This role has no U.S. Person restriction.
• Willingness to expand into technical areas beyond your area of expertise; ability to develop innovative and novel approaches.
• Open-minded and comfortable working in a teaming environment as an individual contributor.
• Fluent in both written and verbal English.

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on MATLAB/Simulink for modeling and simulating dynamic systems (plant models, closed-loop control, MIL/SIL simulation).
• Flutter (or Dart) specifically.
• Train-control / rail-signaling domain familiarity — ATP, braking curves, trackfiles, consist management.
• Motor-control or traction/powertrain domain knowledge — inverters, electric drives, torque and speed control.
• Vehicle dynamics, longitudinal dynamics, or drivetrain modeling across rail, EV, automotive, or other mobile platforms.
• Fault-injection experience, or a path from software-in-the-loop to hardware-in-the-loop (HIL).
• CAN bus and vehicle log formats (e.g. MDF/MF4, CAN traces), and familiarity with how embedded control firmware is structured and logged.
• Experience building internal engineering tools that other engineers depend on, with Git version control and disciplined testing practice.
• Effective use of AI coding assistants with rigorous personal review and testing discipline.
• Background in rail, electric vehicles, autonomous/unmanned systems, or robotics.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and end-to-end build of the software-in-the-loop framework that runs the real control modules — consumed at pinned commits in a reproducible, containerized environment (clone, set one config file, run one command) — against scripted test scenarios, with only enough dynamics fidelity to exercise the control logic; the fidelity level is a design decision settled at architecture review.
• Feed trackfiles and site-server messages into the control modules at realistic rates; evolve the framework toward playback of messages logged in the field — sensor data and real trip requests.
• Define a standardized scenario format with pass/fail success criteria and build a scenario builder that turns existing trackfiles into test scenarios, so control-software failures are caught automatically rather than by a human eyeballing a plot.
• Build the Flutter-based UI that shows module inputs and outputs, the position of each car in each consist on the trackfile, and latched errors with timestamps, plus controls for starting, stopping, and changing simulation speed.
• Make it straightforward to run one scenario against different control-software versions and compare results, so the team can qualify a change and catch regressions across releases.
• Partner closely with the controls, motor-control, and embedded software teams — the source of the control software under test and the primary users of the simulator — to shape the tool around how they actually work.

Benefits

• Medical coverage: We cover 100% of employee medical premiums, plus low-cost dental and vision options.
• Vacation: Full-time employees enjoy unlimited paid time off.
• Equity: Full-time employees receive equity in the company.
• Parental leave: New parents receive paid time off to spend quality time with their family.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level