Senior Robotics Controls Engineer

Senior Robotics Controls Engineer

Company: Atoms
Location: San Francisco, CA (in office 5 days per week; up to 15% travel to mining sites)
Compensation: $170,000 - $220,000 + competitive equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: Visa transfers and new sponsorship (H-1B, TN)

About Atoms

Atoms is building the machines that power the next era of progress. Founded by Travis Kalanick after Uber, it consolidates eight years of technology development to bring Physical AI to industries that move civilization forward, across Atoms Food (formerly CloudKitchens), Atoms Mining (formerly Pronto AI, with 100+ autonomous haul trucks in live operation hauling millions of tons) and Atoms Transport.

Atoms takes a modular, OEM-agnostic approach, integrating autonomy into existing vehicles and equipment, and has raised $1.25B+.

The Role

Atoms is hiring Robotics Controls Engineers (3+ years) to design and tune the core control systems that let 200+ ton autonomous haul trucks operate safely at mining sites. You will work on localization, path following, longitudinal and lateral control and steering, solving hard navigation problems at remote, unstructured sites in an engineering-first culture that ships real production systems.

What You Will Do

• Design, implement and tune control algorithms (MPC, PID) across varying payloads and grades.
• Develop state estimation and localization pipelines fusing GPS/RTK, IMU and other sensors, including handling GPS dropouts.
• Analyze performance through field testing on real trucks and log replay, and debug control issues to root cause.
• Integrate controls with perception, planning and hardware teams in production vehicles.
• Travel periodically (up to 15%) to customer mining sites for deployment and tuning.

What You Bring

• 3+ years of controls engineering on autonomous vehicles or robots
• Control algorithm design (MPC, PID) and state estimation (Kalman filters)
• Strong Python and C++, with ROS and Linux
• Field testing and debugging experience on real hardware
• Ability to work in the San Francisco office 5 days a week and travel up to 15%

Nice to Have

• Mining autonomy experience (for example Hexagon, Caterpillar or Komatsu)
• Heavy vehicle or off-road autonomy

Tech Stack

Python, C++, ROS, Linux, MPC, NumPy, SciPy, NVIDIA Jetson, GPS/RTK, IMU, CAN bus, Kalman filters (EKF/UKF)

REVENUE: 14.5% of first-year salary. Est. fee per hire $25K-$32K; 8 seat(s) = up to $226K if all filled.

TARGET COMPANIES (client (Hexagon/Caterpillar/Komatsu named) + suggested): Hexagon, Caterpillar, Komatsu, Aurora, Kodiak, Built Robotics.

BEST-FIT CANDIDATE: 3+ yrs; AV/robot controls (MPC/PID); state estimation; field testing; visa: transfers + new H-1B/TN; location: SF 5 days + 15% travel.