Clera

Principal Robotic Controls Engineer

San Francisco
Salary
$250,000 - $315,000 annually
Level
Principal
Work type
On-site · San Francisco
Visa
Not offered

Open. First seen 6 November 2026.

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About the role

About the Role

Join a defense technology team developing autonomous directed-energy systems. As the senior technical anchor for controls, you will shape precision pointing and tracking architecture, from theory and simulation through real-world hardware testing.

What You'll Do

  • Design control architecture for coarse gimbals and fine steering mirrors, including bandwidth allocation, multi-rate operation, and stage handoffs.
  • Develop Kalman, interacting multiple model, and nonlinear filters that fuse radar, EO/IR, and inertial data into latency-compensated aimpoint estimates.
  • Build line-of-sight stabilization and jitter-rejection methods, including inertial stabilization, feedforward, and adaptive or notch filtering for structural modes.
  • Allocate pointing error budgets across jitter, bias, latency, and atmospheric effects, then validate precision performance against dynamic targets in field tests.
  • Model plants and identify system dynamics for gimbals, mirrors, and structures, using simulation and hardware-in-the-loop validation.
  • Analyze stability and robustness under disturbances and parameter variation, and integrate controls with tracking, engagement sequencing, and safety logic.
  • Deploy control algorithms to embedded targets, collaborate on kilohertz-rate loops, and compare field test results with simulation predictions.
  • Provide technical review across controls and sensor integration, and mentor engineers through hands-on technical leadership.

What We're Looking For

  • At least 10 years of experience closing loops on precision pointing, tracking, or stabilization hardware, with PhD-level depth in control theory and estimation.
  • Proficiency in robust control, including H-infinity, mu-synthesis, and LQG, plus optimal estimation such as Kalman variants, IMM, and nonlinear observers.
  • Experience shipping C or C++ control loops on embedded or RTOS targets, and working with MATLAB/Simulink and Python.
  • Background in sensor fusion, multi-rate and sampled-data design, real-time hardware-in-the-loop validation, system identification, and structural dynamics.
  • Ability to serve as the controls technical anchor on a small team. Directed-energy or high-energy laser experience and an active security clearance, or ability to obtain one, are advantages.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary range: $250,000 to $315,000 annually. Equity and visa sponsorship details were not provided.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, United States.

What this role asks for

Standard for software engineering roles

Python

Common in software engineering postings at any company.

Compared with Clera's other open jobs.

The team: Engineering HIRES STEADILY

This role is one of 358 open in Engineering. 226 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in March: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.

WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS

LLM (180 of 358), TypeScript (177 of 358), React (154 of 358), Python (146 of 358), Machine Learning (74 of 358), Supabase (73 of 358), PostgreSQL (68 of 358)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

From the team and dates on Clera's own job board.

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