About the role
Controls closes the loop between the trajectory the planner wants and what the vehicle actually does. You will design the longitudinal and lateral controllers, the actuator interfaces and the state estimation that sits between them, so the platform tracks a path precisely on dry tarmac and stays predictable on wet leaf litter.
Actuators lag, saturate and vary between units and tyres, and every delay you do not model becomes a limit cycle at speed. The work sits between Planning, Embedded and Safety: you receive trajectories, run on deterministic real-time compute and must degrade into a safe stop when something fails. Control methods are shared with other Clexerl machines that move, so the frameworks are written to be vehicle-agnostic.
Controllers are developed model-first, validated in hardware-in-the-loop and then tuned on a closed track with a safety driver.
What you’ll do
- Design and tune longitudinal and lateral controllers using MPC, LQR or feedforward plus feedback, with explicit handling of actuation delay and saturation.
- Identify vehicle and actuator dynamics from test data and maintain plant models used in simulation and controller design.
- Develop state and parameter estimators for slip, road grade, mass and friction so controller gains adapt to conditions.
- Define fallback behaviours, such as controlled deceleration with degraded steering, and verify them on the test track.
- Analyse stability margins, tracking error and ride comfort metrics, and report them by operating regime.
- Collaborate with embedded engineers to implement controllers with bounded execution time and fixed-point or floating-point numerics chosen deliberately.
What you’ll bring
- Experience designing and deploying feedback controllers on physical systems such as vehicles, drones or industrial machines.
- Strong foundation in classical and modern control, including frequency-domain analysis, state-space design, observers and discrete-time implementation.
- Proficiency with modelling tools such as MATLAB or Simulink and with Python for system identification.
- Working C or C++ for real-time targets, and an understanding of sampling, aliasing and jitter.
- Practical sense for sensor noise, backlash, deadband and hysteresis, and how each shows up on a test day.
- Willingness to spend time at the track watching the vehicle misbehave, then explain it with data.
Nice to have
- Experience with vehicle dynamics modelling, tyre models and traction or stability control.
- Familiarity with drive-by-wire interfaces and CAN or automotive Ethernet signal conventions.
- Experience applying MPC with code generation for embedded solvers.
- Knowledge of functional safety expectations for steering and braking command paths.
Work you might take on
- 01
Add a delay-compensating predictor to the steering loop and remove the lateral oscillation seen on long sweeping curves at highway speed.
- 02
Identify brake actuator dynamics across temperature and wear, then update the longitudinal controller to keep stopping distance consistent.
- 03
Implement an online friction estimator and use it to scale comfort limits on wet or low-grip surfaces.
- 04
Build a hardware-in-the-loop test that injects actuator faults and verifies the vehicle comes to a controlled stop within bounds.
Compensation
$190K – $300K
The US base salary range for this role. Every offer also includes equity in Clexerl and, when it spins out, in the venture you help build. We tell you the reasoning behind your number.
Benefits
Health, fully covered
Medical, dental and vision for you and your dependants, premiums paid in full.
Two kinds of equity
Equity in Clexerl, plus a stake in the venture you help build when it spins out.
22 weeks parental leave
Fully paid, for every parent, however your family arrives.
Rest that sticks
Flexible time off with a four-week minimum we actually check on, plus a company-wide week in December.
Learning and compute
A yearly budget for courses, conferences and books, and compute credits for side projects.
401(k) with a 4% match
Matched from your first paycheque and vested immediately.
How we hire
Apply 5 minutes
Send links to what you have built and a few lines on why this role. No cover letter needed.
Intro call 30 minutes
A conversation with the hiring manager about the work, the team and what you want next.
Work sample 2–4 hours
A paid take-home or a pairing session on a real-shaped problem. You pick the format.
Studio day One day
Meet the team, go deep on your work and ours. Remote or in person.
Offer Within 5 days
A written offer with the full range, the equity and the reasoning behind both.
Opens an email with a short template. Links beat résumés.