Robotics Controls Engineer

About the Role
General Astronautics is building autonomous dexterous robotic arms for orbital inspection, repair, and assembly. Our systems will enable spacecraft to perform complex operations without astronaut intervention, transforming how hardware is maintained, upgraded, and operated in space.
We're looking for a Founding Robotics Engineer to own the software, controls, and autonomy stack that enables our robotic arms to perform complex manipulation tasks in microgravity. This role spans motion planning, controls, perception, simulation, and integration with physical hardware, with opportunities to develop and deploy emerging learning-based approaches to robotic autonomy.
This is a high-ownership, high-accountability role. You will be one of the first engineers at the company, working directly on the robot's core capabilities from initial development through flight demonstrations. The software you build will control real hardware in space.
Responsibilities
Lead development of the robotics software and autonomy stack for dexterous manipulation in microgravity
Develop and implement motion planning, trajectory generation, inverse kinematics, and feedback control algorithms for robotic manipulators
Integrate perception, sensing, and state estimation to enable autonomous interaction with objects and spacecraft hardware
Develop, train, evaluate, and deploy learning-based robotic policies for autonomous manipulation tasks
Define performance metrics, test procedures, and verification plans for autonomous robotic operations
Basic Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related discipline.
Strong understanding of robotic kinematics, dynamics, motion planning, and control theory
Proficiency in C++ and/or Python for robotics software development
Experience developing and deploying software on physical robotic systems
Strong debugging, problem-solving, and systems integration skills
Demonstrated ability to take ownership of complex technical problems from concept through working implementation
Preferred Skills and Experience
Experience with ROS 2
Experience with robotic perception, computer vision, pose estimation, and sensor fusion
Familiarity with vision-language-action models, foundation models for robotics, or world models
Experience with physics simulation environments such as Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, or equivalent
Experience deploying robotic software on embedded GPU platforms, including NVIDIA Jetson
Experience developing autonomous systems for aerospace, defense, or other safety-critical environments
Familiarity with software verification, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and configuration management
ITAR / Citizenship Requirements
Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or eligible for authorization under U.S. export regulations.

Experience
Any (new grads ok)

Work arrangement
No