About the role

As a technical lead for controls, you will own the technical direction of our controls stack across its full lifecycle - from 01 development on new vehicle platforms to hardening, calibrating, and scaling controllers across production fleets. The systems you lead are high performance and safety-critical, operating under tight timing constraints on real machines in the field.

This role spans the full controls stack: low-level actuation and vehicle characterization on one end, and high-level trajectory tracking - both lateral and longitudinal. We work on a variety of different vehicle platforms: haul trucks, excavators, wheel loaders, dozers, and other heavy equipment across construction, mining, and agriculture.

In addition to your technical leadership, you will mentor and grow the existing controls team, set priorities across competing work streams, and set the standard for best practices. We move fast and we focus on excellence, for our products and for our business. If you are hands-on and looking for a place to have a multiplying effect on making autonomous systems a reality, Applied Intuition is the place for you!

At Applied Intuition, you will:

• Set the technical direction for the controls stack across both 01 platform bring-up and production programs, and see designs through from prototype to deployed fleet
• Design and implement controllers at every level of the stack, from low-level actuator control to lateral and longitudinal trajectory tracking
• Design safe, redundant control systems that live within a safety-critical environment.
• Characterize the dynamics of customer vehicles across many embodiments - haul trucks, excavators, wheel loaders, dozers, and more - to create tailored controls solutions and close the gap between simulation and real-world behavior
• Build calibration and vehicle characterization workflows that scale controls performance from a single prototype to fleets of vehicles without per-vehicle hand-tuning
• Lead, mentor, and grow the existing controls team; set priorities, unblock engineers, and raise the technical bar through design reviews and hands-on collaboration
• Evaluate and apply academic research to create optimal-control-based solutions using techniques like nonlinear MPC and MPPI control
• Collaborate with customers' engineers in construction, mining, and agriculture, and manage those relationships through field deployments

We're looking for someone who has:

• Passion for tackling challenging control problems involving a wide array of vehicles in varied and unstructured environments
• 6+ years of experience building production software using modern software practices, including experience leading engineers or owning a technical area
• Hands-on experience taking controls solutions from first prototype through deployment on real, production-grade vehicles
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, prioritize a team's roadmap, and drive technical decisions across multiple concurrent workstreams
• Fluency in differential equations, numerical optimization, numerical analysis, and physics
• Enthusiasm for coming up with practical solutions to cutting-edge challenges in a fast-paced environment, and for building towards an end-to-end strategy

Nice to have:

• MSc or PhD in mechanical engineering, robotics, or computer science with coursework or research experience in controls
• Experience writing safety-critical, high-performance software using modern C++
• Experience in quadratic programming and nonlinear optimization to create robust and performant controllers
• Experience with heavy equipment or off-road platforms in construction, mining, or agriculture
• Experience building calibration pipelines or system identification tooling used across a fleet

Compensation at Applied Intuition for eligible roles includes base salary, equity, and benefits. Base salary is a single component of the total compensation package, which may also include equity in the form of options and/or restricted stock units, comprehensive health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance coverage, 401k retirement benefits with employer match, learning and wellness stipends, and paid time off. Note that benefits are subject to change and may vary based on jurisdiction of employment.

Applied Intuition pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum intended target base salary for new hire salaries for the position. The actual base salary offered to a successful candidate will additionally be influenced by a variety of factors including experience, credentials & certifications, educational attainment, skill level requirements, interview performance, and the level and scope of the position.

Don't meet every single requirement? If you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.