Engineering Manager - Controls

Apptronik • Austin, TX

7d

About The Position

Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots, including Apollo, a humanoid robot designed to collaborate with people. The Engineering Manager - Controls leads a team responsible for the real-time control software running on the robots. This player-leader is accountable for people leadership and delivery, including hiring and developing engineers, driving team deliverables within the Controls roadmap, and ensuring the control stack is reliable, well tested, and production-ready.

The role oversees the real-time control framework, including robot drivers, state estimation, control interfaces, and integration of learned policies and teleoperation. It plans and tracks work against milestones, manages risks, maintains software quality and release stability, and supports rapid iteration across simulation and hardware. The manager works closely with firmware, embedded software, learning, teleoperation, systems, and test teams to move capabilities from simulation onto the robot fleet. The position also supports robot bring-up, calibration tooling, and investigation of issues found during testing or in the field.

Apptronik provides equal employment opportunities and prohibits discrimination and harassment on protected grounds. This is a direct-hire role; outside agency solicitations are not requested.

Requirements

• Strong foundation in robot kinematics, dynamics, and control, with hands-on experience in areas such as whole-body control, manipulation, or teleoperation.
• Experience building or leading development of real-time robotic software in C++, including multithreaded execution, timing, and hardware interfaces.
• Track record of taking control software from simulation to physical robots and supporting it in testing and deployment.
• Experience managing or leading engineers, including hiring, mentoring, performance feedback, and setting team priorities.
• Experience planning and delivering software in a fast-moving R&D environment while balancing near-term deliverables with long-term code health.
• MS or PhD in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• 4+ years of relevant industry experience in robot controls or robotics software, or 2+ years with a PhD; includes 1+ year managing engineers and 2+ years as a technical lead.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with humanoid, legged, or mobile manipulation platforms.
• Experience with state estimation and system identification for robotic systems.
• Experience integrating reinforcement learning or other learned policies into a real-time control stack.
• Experience with physics engines such as MuJoCo, IsaacSim, or Drake.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing, continuous integration, and release processes for robotics software.
• Familiarity with ROS 2 or similar robotics middleware.

Responsibilities

• Oversee development of the real-time control framework running on the robot, including robot drivers, state estimation, control interfaces, and integration of learned policies and teleoperation.
• Plan and drive team deliverables in coordination with other leads within the broader Controls roadmap; break program goals into work, track milestones, and raise schedule or quality risks early.
• Hire, manage, and mentor controls and software engineers; set priorities and ownership, provide regular feedback, and develop engineers and technical leads.
• Maintain code quality through design reviews, code reviews, and automated testing, including simulation and hardware-in-the-loop regression tests.
• Own the team's contribution to the software release process and the stability of software shipped to the robot fleet.
• Keep control software and tooling efficient to support rapid experimentation in simulation and on hardware.
• Ensure the control stack behaves consistently in simulation and on hardware; support robot bring-up, calibration tooling, and root-cause analysis of issues found in testing and in the field.
• Partner with firmware, embedded software, learning, teleoperation, systems, and test teams to align interfaces, priorities, and schedules, and represent the team in stakeholder reviews.

What This Job Offers

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