Senior Motor Control Engineer
1X · San Carlos
About 1X
We’re building humanoid robots that work in home - doing the chores, handling the tasks, and giving people their time back. Simple, but it’s not.
To do this right, we have to solve robotics, AI, manufacturing - at the same time, at scale, in a form factor that has to be safe enough to live with your family. If you’re inspired by this, you’ll thrive here. We’ve been at this since 2014 and we’re at the point where the hard problems are behind us and the hard work is in front of us.
NEO is our flagship - a home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world alongside real people. We’re not demoing it - we’re shipping it. We’re excited to meet you, if this excites you.
If you’ve spent your career working on problems that matter and want to see them actually reach the world - this is that moment. We’re scaling, we’re hiring with intention, and we need people who want to build something that will genuinely change how humans spend their time - safely creating abundance for all.
About the Team
The Actuators team develops the electromechanical systems that enable NEO to move with strength, precision, and reliability. Our work spans mechanical design, electric motors, sensing, power transmission, controls integration, and hardware validation.
We work closely with electrical, controls, firmware, test, and manufacturing teams to rapidly develop actuator concepts, validate performance, and mature designs into reliable systems that can be produced at scale.
Your Charter
Own how NEO’s motors turn current into torque. You will design, simulate, tune and validate the motor control for the REVO2 family of in-house permanent magnet synchronous motors and for the new motors joining the family, in quasi-direct-drive and geared joints across the whole body.
Your control decides how NEO feels to the people around it: quiet, smooth, backdrivable and compliant, with accurate torque delivered inside tight current, voltage and thermal limits. You will take each controller from model and simulation, to the dynamometer, to the full robot, and you will define the limits, fault reactions and torque-off behavior that keep NEO safe next to a family.
You will work alongside the electromagnetic design team, turning their FEA results into control-oriented motor models (for example JMAG-RT plant models in MATLAB/Simulink) and feeding control findings back into the next motor revision. You own the control implementation on the product, from simulation to the dynamometer to the full robot, and you work with electrical (gate drivers, current sensing, inverters) and firmware engineers to bring each control strategy into production with its parameters and the evidence that it works.
Key Outcomes
Design and tune field-oriented control with space-vector PWM and cascaded current, velocity and position loops for every REVO2 motor variant, with documented bandwidth, phase margin and step response targets per joint
Deliver torque and impedance control modes that make NEO backdrivable and compliant on contact, with torque accuracy verified at the joint output
Build a motor parameter identification process (Rs, Ld, Lq, flux linkage, inertia, friction) that runs on the dynamometer and scales to production units
Own encoder, Hall and resolver calibration and commutation offset procedures so every motor commutates correctly from first power-up
Reduce torque ripple and acoustic noise through cogging and ripple compensation, feedforward and friction compensation, measured on the dyno and on the robot
Get the most torque and speed out of a low-voltage battery bus with field weakening, MTPA and voltage-limit handling, while respecting current and thermal limits on small, densely packed motors
Define and validate fault detection and reactions for overcurrent, overvoltage, undervoltage, overtemperature, stall and sensor loss, including safe torque-off behavior
Characterize control performance on dynamometers (torque constant, efficiency maps, torque ripple, thermal behavior, loop response) with repeatable test methods and clear reports
Build and maintain control-oriented plant models (JMAG-RT, MATLAB/Simulink or Python) correlated with dyno and robot data, and feed the results into the next motor and drive revisions
Key Competencies
Control fundamentals: frequency-domain design, discrete-time and delay effects, saturation and anti-windup, and a clear sense of where a model stops being true
Motor physics intuition: you can explain a torque ripple harmonic, a current-loop oscillation or a thermal derate from the motor equations and the measured data
Hands-on debugging at the hardware, firmware and control boundary with a scope, current probe, dyno logs and the firmware source, fixing root causes instead of retuning symptoms
Safety-first judgement: you treat limits, fault reactions and torque-off as part of the control design, not an afterthought
Clear communication with motor design, electrical, firmware and test engineers, and the habit of getting involved early in hardware decisions that affect control
Minimum Requirements
Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Controls, Mechatronics, Robotics or a related field
3+ years of industry experience designing and tuning motor control on real hardware, with level set by depth and scope of ownership
Shipped motor control: field-oriented control with cascaded current, velocity and position loops for PMSM or BLDC motors that you designed or tuned, running on hardware that reached production, a fielded fleet or a formal validation program
Strong command of PMSM modelling in the dq frame, space-vector PWM, inverter non-idealities (dead time, current sensing, ADC and PWM timing) and voltage limits
Hands-on motor parameter identification and position sensor calibration (encoder, Hall or resolver, including commutation offset)
Dynamometer experience measuring torque constant, efficiency, torque ripple and loop response, and turning the data into control changes
Controller modelling and simulation in MATLAB/Simulink or Python
Ability to read embedded C/C++ well enough to trace control behavior back to the code
Preferred Skills
Torque and impedance control for robotic joints, quasi-direct-drive or geared actuators, backdrivability and compliant physical interaction
Field weakening and MTPA on low-voltage drives, and thermal modelling and derating of small motors
Control-oriented motor modelling with FEA-derived plant models such as JMAG-RT, and co-simulation with the electromagnetic design team
Torque ripple, cogging and acoustic noise reduction in servo or robotic actuators
Embedded firmware development in C/C++ on STM32, TI C2000 or similar, including ISR timing, DMA and ADC and PWM synchronization
EtherCAT or CAN FD at 1 kHz and above, and a real-time OS such as FreeRTOS or Zephyr
Functional safety experience with IEC 61508, ISO 13849 or IEC 61800-5-2 (including STO), and familiarity with robot safety standards such as ISO 13482 and ISO 10218
Sensorless control and observer design
MS or PhD with research in motor drives or control
What does a successful 1X Team Member look like?
Team members at 1X who thrive here are builders. They move fast, own their work completely, and treat time like it’s the one thing you can’t get back - because it is. They say what they mean, finish what they start, and hold themselves to a standard before anyone has to ask. We push each other to be better, and we do it with honesty and respect.
Successful Motor Control Engineers at 1X combine deep control theory with a strong bias toward the bench. They are as comfortable deriving a current-loop gain as they are reading a dyno log or a firmware trace at the end of the day. They measure before they tune, they leave every controller better documented than they found it, and they understand that a robot living with a family has to be quiet, gentle and safe every time it moves.
Benefits
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
Generous paid time off, company holidays, and parental leave
401(k) plan with company match (100% on the first 3% of contributions, 50% on the next 2%)
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) options
Commuter benefits (transit and parking)
Short-term and long-term disability, and life insurance
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health, financial, and personal support
Onsite snacks and catered lunches
Equal Opportunity Employer
1X is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, disability, military or veteran status, justice system impact, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.
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