Senior Controls Engineer

Dephy is looking for a candidate who was born to be an engineer: someone that has an urge to understand how things work, and who gets excited when there is no known solution to the problem at hand. We are curious, creative, and passionate engineers looking for a team member to help us tackle challenges at the forefront of wearable robotics. Come help us transition mobility exoskeletons from labs and treadmills to the real world: cities, trails, and mountains.

About the Company

Dephy is a robotics design firm founded in 2016 with the primary mission of bringing humans Beyond Nature™ with performance enhancing wearable robotics technologies. We utilize a practical, hands-on approach to problem-solving. We are active in the military, medical, and consumer markets.

Job Description

Your task is easy to understand but challenging to do well: predict when the user’s foot will next touch the ground and determine how much assistive torque should be applied. There are a few constraints: it has to be done real-time on a small microcontroller, the inputs are noisy, the sensors are limited and imperfect, the terrain, gait and/or gait speed might be changing, the user adapts to your previous actions, and a machine learning algorithm with a 1% false positive rate will result in the user tripping every 100m.

As a controls engineer at Dephy you will have a direct effect on deciding the appropriate behavior of our devices while worn by a user. You will do extensive R&D to take data from our sensors, understand what a user is doing, and decide how the motors should respond. This process involves numerous iterations of analyzing data, prototyping simulated solutions, moving simulations to hardware, building custom tools, testing on people, and debugging. As a senior controls engineer, you will take on more challenging controls challenges and provide technical guidance and/or leadership for a small team.

Responsibilities

• Be a technical leader that loves to solve hard problems
• Combine developing, debugging, and optimizing real-time software in novel ways to deliver new features that have immediate impact. You will be directly responsible for innovating and implementing new control solutions to advance our devices.
• Determines and implements the appropriate pattern recognition, heuristics, sensor fusion, data analysis, and/or machine learning techniques to address real Dephy needs.  
• Integrate high-level decision-making and motion control for robotic applications.(autonomous vehicles, drones, industrial robots, robotic manipulators, etc.)
• Help advance Dephy’s understanding of augmentation & biomechanics
• Clearly understand and predict client’s needs to create the ultimate user experience
• Scope controls work to be consistent with Dephy goals. Create, execute, and communicate plans, timelines, and resources to break high level problems into more detailed actionable steps while managing risk
• Proactively work with our multidisciplinary team to represent the Controls Team on complex system solutions
• Support and mentor other team members.

Requirements

• Be a good human – get along with the team, build strong working relationships, and execute on Dephy’s Values. 
• Master’s degree in engineering or science and 3 years of professional experience or Bachelor’s degree in engineering or science and 5 years of professional experience.
• Experience developing, debugging, and optimizing real-time software. You will be directly responsible for implementing new control solutions to advance our devices.
• Strong knowledge of C and Matlab, with at least an intermediate level of Python and C++
• Experience identifying and solving hard problems and structural issues with creative solutions including algorithmic and/or codebase reorganization.
• Responsibility, accountability, and independence are key. You will have experience ensuring that assigned projects are successful from a control’s standpoint.
• Expertise in at least 2 of the following:
• Implementation & Architecture: Adjusting and implementing quality final solutions that are computationally efficient, modular, and maintainable.
• Mechanics: Biomechanics, Kinematics and Dynamics
• Machine learning: Decision-making, optimization and system modeling
• Electromechanical Control: Sensors, filtering and motor Control
• Technical Project Management & Planning: Including creation of requirements, constraints, timelines, and methods to manage risk.
• Experience with Git workflow and version control
• Understanding of biomechanics, human locomotion, and augmentation
• Experience with human subject testing, data collection, real-time performance tracking
• Experience with high-level “non-classical” control algorithms & techniques (MPC, LQR, Kalman filtering, etc.)
• Experience converting basic prototypes to quality implementations focused on maintainability and modularity
• Experience with walking robots, exoskeletons, and/or active prostheses
• Experience with embedded systems and microcontrollers
• Experience leading technical teams
• Teaching controls or system theory

Other Info:

• Start date: ASAP
• At Dephy, our mission is to bring humans Beyond Nature™. Our goal is to do this by attracting, hiring, and building a team of good humans. Humans who are diverse builders with unique collections of tools, cultures, and experiences. We celebrate our differences and foster an environment for our team to learn and ask questions. We trust and respect each other, and value the cultural contribution that we each bring to Dephy. We believe that when people feel respected and included they can be more creative, innovative, and successful. We encourage you to apply, even if you don’t meet every qualification or skill.
• Candidates need to be authorized to work in the U.S.
• This position is not eligible for sponsorship of an immigration case in order to employ you (for example, H-1B or other employment-based immigration case).
• Salary and equity will be determined based on qualifications
• This listing is not for reproduction. No recruiters please, only interested candidates.

Benefits

• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan (Simple IRA)
• Life Insurance
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
• Long Term Disability
• Free Food & Snacks
• Fitness Center and Cafe in building
• Dog Friendly Office