Controls Engineer, R&D

Fluidstack

$110K — $130K *
Technical Services
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience writing control logic for rotating machinery.
  • Proven history of designing fault interlocks with safety at the forefront.
  • Experience in hardware-in-the-loop testing with documented real-world findings.
  • Proficient in tuning control loops on live machinery under challenging conditions.
  • Skilled at producing user-friendly documentation for complex control systems.

Responsibilities

  • Own and develop the control architecture for compressors and test rigs.
  • Design and implement safety interlocks for critical fault management.
  • Manage capacity control via motor and turbine speeds without throttling valves.
  • Conduct hardware-in-the-loop validation of control systems prior to physical testing.
  • Facilitate the integration of control systems from test cells to production chillers.

Benefits

  • Flexible work hours to accommodate project requirements.
  • Opportunity for professional development and continuous learning.
  • Access to cutting-edge technology and innovative projects.
  • Collaborative work environment that encourages creativity and problem-solving.
Full Job Description
The Thermofluids R&D Team

Examples of key problems the team is working on
  • Reject more than 10 gigawatts of heat, starting now. Fluidstack is targeting 10 GW of compute in 2027 and 30 GW the year after. Every watt of it becomes heat that has to go somewhere, and no cooling team has ever been asked to open at that number rather than grow into it.
  • Design and build the machines, because nobody can supply them. The merchant compressor market cannot deliver at this rate, and the vendor base behind today's chillers will not scale to gigawatts. We are taking compressor and chiller design in house, working on machine architectures nobody sells today, and going from blank sheet to production faster than this industry thinks is possible.
  • Own every thermofluids problem behind the fleet, not just the chiller. Working fluid and cycle architecture, heat exchangers at a scale that dominates the cost of the plant, two-phase heat transfer at the chip, and thermal energy storage. All of it is open, and whatever this team lands gets built thousands of times.
Role Scope
  • Own the control architecture for the machine and the test rigs, spanning the compressor, the motor drive, the expansion turbine and the loop around them.
  • Write the safety interlocks and fault handling for a machine whose working fluid can cross its critical point inside the normal operating range, taking the control problem with it.
  • Deliver capacity control through motor and turbine speed rather than throttling valves, keeping the process fluid path free of valves at the design point.
  • Validate the control system against hardware-in-the-loop before it ever touches the real machine, and prove the interlocks fire.
  • Carry the controls out of the test cell and into the production chiller, including integration with site BMS and the wider plant.


What We're Looking For

The below is a starting point. We always make space for exceptional people, so if you don't fit this role exactly, tell us where you would.
  • You've written control logic for rotating machinery and you were in the room the first time it ran.
  • You've designed interlocks where a fault means destroyed hardware or an injured person, and you can justify every one of them from first principles.
  • You've run hardware-in-the-loop testing that caught something real before it reached commissioning.
  • You've tuned loops on a live machine and worked out why the model and the plant disagreed.
  • You've handed a control system to people who did not write it, with documentation they could actually use at three in the morning.
  • Bonus: Propulsion or vehicle test controls (engine sequencing, abort and safing logic). Variable-speed drives and high-speed motor control (VFDs, magnetic bearing controllers). Refrigeration and chiller control (superheat, head pressure, capacity staging). Industrial control platforms (Beckhoff, Siemens, Allen-Bradley, CODESYS). Model-based development and HIL (Simulink, dSPACE, NI VeriStand).


We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

You will receive a confirmation email once your application has successfully been accepted. If there is an error with your submission and you did not receive a confirmation email, please email [redacted] with your resume/CV, the role you've applied for, and the date you submitted your application-- someone from our recruiting team will be in touch.

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