Exoskeleton Controls Engineer
About The Position
Skip is an early-stage, 28-person startup spun out of Google X in 2023, building wearable robotic devices to restore mobility and create joyful movement experiences. The company is developing MO/GO, a powered leg exoskeleton, and a platform for future Movewear products. The Exoskeleton Controls Engineer will design, develop, test, and validate MO/GO’s high-level control system. The work includes determining how the device senses wearer activity and provides natural, safe assistance across walking, stairs, hills, and other movements. This begins as an individual-contributor role with leadership for critical systems, collaborating closely with firmware, mechatronics, and product teams. The position is full-time and hybrid, based at Skip’s Dogpatch office in San Francisco.
Requirements
- At least 5 years of experience developing control systems for robotics, exoskeletons, prosthetics, or other physical systems that interact with people.
- Strong foundation in control theory, state estimation, and sensor fusion, such as Kalman filtering.
- Experience taking controllers from simulation to real hardware, including tuning and debugging physical systems.
- Proficiency in C/C++ and Python, with experience deploying control code on real-time or embedded platforms.
- Experience designing and running experiments with human subjects or real-world users and analyzing the resulting data.
- Familiarity with biomechanics and human gait.
- Experience designing systems for scale, with a focus on testing and validation.
- Attention to detail.
- Ability to work at the Skip Bay Area office more than 3 days per week.
- Sense of humor and tolerance for Australian and Canadian spelling.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with lower-limb exoskeletons or powered prostheses.
- Experience with machine-learning-based or reinforcement-learning controllers deployed on real robots.
- Familiarity with series elastic actuators and torque-controlled drives.
- Experience with powered consumer electronics, such as drones or robot vacuums.
- Experience in startup environments and using AI coding tools to broaden the impact of your work.
- Personal motivation to improve human movement.
Responsibilities
- Own the high-level exoskeleton control architecture, from sensing and state estimation through assistance torque commands to the low-level motor controller.
- Develop and tune gait-phase estimation, activity recognition, and transition detection using IMU, encoder, and torque-sensor data.
- Design assistance strategies and torque profiles that adapt to users, speeds, and terrain, including human-in-the-loop optimization.
- Explore and deploy learning-based control methods when they outperform classical approaches, and run them reliably on embedded hardware.
- Build and maintain simulation and modeling tools, such as MuJoCo, OpenSim, and MATLAB/Simulink, for controller development and validation.
- Define and own safety behaviors, fault handling, and edge-case responses so the device fails gracefully on the body.
- Plan and conduct human-subject testing and data collection, and use the resulting data to improve controllers.
- Guide design and development decisions for future product iterations and Movewear systems, including sensor selection, actuator requirements, and compute needs.
- Wear prototypes several hours a week for data collection, on-body testing, and feedback.
- Participate in team activities and contribute to a positive team environment.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
