Controls Engineer

Responsibilities

• Design and implement motor control systems for electrically actuated valves and pumps, interfacing with drive electronics, feedback sensing, and control algorithms.
• Develop automated sequences for propellant fill, drain, vent, and conditioning operations on both vehicle and ground support equipment.
• Architect and implement closed-loop control for fluid system parameters (pressure, temperature, flow rate, liquid level) across propulsion and thermal subsystems.
• Select and integrate actuators, motors, encoders, position sensors, and pressure/temperature instrumentation for fluid system control.
• Design control electronics hardware (motor drivers, power stages, sensor interfaces) or define requirements for electrical engineering partners.
• Develop embedded firmware and real-time control software for fluid system controllers and sequencers.
• Perform system modeling and simulation to validate control strategies, predict transient behavior, and tune controller gains.
• Define and execute hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and system-level test campaigns to verify control performance and fault response.
• Develop fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) logic for fluid system automation to ensure safe operations during nominal and off-nominal conditions.
• Work closely with fluid systems, propulsion, avionics, and software teams to integrate controls into the broader vehicle architecture.
• Support propulsion hot-fire testing, vehicle fill/drain operations, and ground system commissioning.
• Investigate anomalies, analyze telemetry data, and iterate on control designs to improve performance and reliability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics, Electrical, Mechanical, Aerospace, or related engineering field.
• 3+ years of experience in controls engineering, mechatronics, or automation for hardware systems.
• Experience with motor control (BLDC, stepper, or brushed) including drive electronics and feedback control.
• Experience with PID control loops, kalman filtering, feedforward control or other control loops and estimation algorithms.
• Proficiency in embedded programming (C/C++) for real-time control applications.
• Experience developing automated sequences or state machines for complex physical systems.
• Hands-on experience integrating sensors, actuators, and control electronics into hardware assemblies.