Firmware Engineer - Actuation
Job description
About the role
You will own the development and optimization of brushless motor control firmware and real-time current and torque control loops for Apollo's actuation stack. You will collaborate daily with controls, systems, electrical, mechanical, and software engineers to translate high-level robot behaviors into deterministic firmware features. Your work will directly influence how safely and smoothly Apollo interacts with people in manufacturing, logistics, and eventually home environments. You will bring system identification, plant modeling, and controller tuning expertise to ensure consistent actuator performance across temperature, load, and aging conditions. You will help design and implement fault detection, fault injection, and recovery mechanisms that make the actuation stack safer and more robust. You will support hardware bring-up from first prototype to volume production and contribute to HIL and SIL test strategies that validate safety and performance at scale. As you grow on the team, you will participate in code and design reviews and help shape the architectural direction of the actuation stack alongside your peers. You will help own firmware quality and reliability as we scale from prototypes to fleets of hundreds and thousands of devices in the field.
Key facts
What you'll do
Collaborate with controls, systems, electrical, mechanical, and software engineers to architect the next generation of humanoid actuators.
Collaborate with the actuation firmware team to develop, deploy, and maintain motor control firmware, including field-oriented control (FOC), current controllers, and torque control for BLDC and other brushless motor topologies.
Contribute to system identification, plant modeling, and controller tuning for production actuators, ensuring consistent performance across units, temperature, and load conditions.
Help shape and execute the Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) and Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) testing strategy to validate actuation performance, safety, and reliability at scale.
Design and implement fault detection, fault injection, and recovery mechanisms for safety-critical motor control systems.
Help drive firmware quality, reliability, and field performance for fleets of hundreds to thousands of actuators deployed in production humanoid robots, including telemetry, diagnostics, and root-cause analysis of field failures.
Work with cross-functional engineering teams to bring up actuation hardware from prototype through production.
Participate in code reviews, design reviews, and pair debugging; help raise the bar for firmware quality across the team.
Contribute to technical decision-making on tooling, processes, and architectural patterns that scale with the team and product.
Support real-time performance optimization and system integration across the actuation stack as robots move from lab experiments to deployed field units.
Assist in defining test vectors and validation metrics that ensure actuator behavior meets safety and performance specifications.
Help maintain and evolve firmware build systems, release processes, and documentation to support growing production and field operations.
Engage in debugging complex interactions between motor control firmware, higher-level planning, and sensing pipelines to resolve field issues.
Promote best practices for deterministic execution, resource usage, and robustness in safety-critical embedded systems.
Represent actuation firmware in cross-team design discussions to ensure alignment with product goals and operational constraints.
Requirements
Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience; Master's degree with a focus on controls or motor drives is especially valued.
Minimum of 3 years of relevant industry experience developing production-grade embedded software, with experience contributing to firmware systems from concept through deployment.
Proficiency in C/C++; working knowledge of Python, Docker, and Git.
Experience developing motor control firmware for BLDC or other brushless motors, including field-oriented control (FOC), current control, and torque control.
Hands-on experience developing hard real-time embedded firmware in production environments.
Experience deploying firmware to devices in the field, including exposure to telemetry, diagnostics, and field reliability.
Experience with EtherCAT for real-time motor control communications.
Strong hardware debugging skills using tools such as oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.
Ability to read and interpret electrical schematics (Altium Designer preferred) and hardware datasheets.
Experience with embedded communication protocols such as SPI, UART, RS485, and CAN.