Principal Robotics Engineer, Atlas Controls

At Boston Dynamics, we are creating the world's most advanced humanoid robots. As we scale the Atlas fleet, ensuring that every robot is reliable, consistent, and performs to its maximum potential is a critical mission. We are looking for a deeply technical, hands-on engineer to be the driving force behind the reliability and performance of our entire fleet.

This role is for the engineer who lives to solve the hardest problems—the one who isn't satisfied with a single fix but is obsessed with building systems to prevent the problem from ever happening again. If you have an intuitive understanding of complex robotic systems, a deep knowledge of electric motors, and a passion for achieving reliability at scale, we want to hear from you.

What You'll Do

• Become the Fleet's Lead Detective: You will own the investigation and resolution of the most complex, intermittent, and systemic issues across the Atlas fleet. You'll go deep into the system—from motor control firmware and electrical systems to control software—to uncover the root cause of elusive problems.

• Bridge Design and Operations: Act as the critical engineering link between our robot operations technicians and the core controls and hardware design teams. You'll be on the front lines, providing expert guidance for diagnostics, and then translate your findings into actionable, data-driven feedback that directly influences future robot designs.

• Build for Scale: Move beyond individual robot repairs to architect fleet-wide solutions. You will design and develop automated diagnostic checks, create data-driven models to monitor performance consistency, and build tools that empower our operations team to identify and resolve issues more efficiently.

• Champion Reliability: Serve as the "voice of the fleet," using field data to advocate for design changes that improve robustness, serviceability, and performance consistency. Your work is key to ensuring that robot #100 performs just as reliably as robot #1.

• Mentor and Lead: As a principal engineer, you will mentor other engineers in best practices for system-level debugging and designing for reliability. This role has a clear path to grow into a technical leadership position for the right candidate.

Who You Are

• You have extensive, hands-on experience debugging complex, multidisciplinary robotic systems (a minimum of 12+ years with a Bachelor's degree, 8+ with a Master's, or 5+ with a PhD).

• You possess a deep and intuitive understanding of electric geared motors, including brushless DC motor principles, motor control firmware, and the subtle ways they can fail in integrated systems.

• You have a "scaling mindset" and a proven track record of moving beyond one-off fixes to implement systemic, data-driven solutions that improve the reliability of an entire fleet of products.

• You are fluent in C++ for on-robot debugging and Python for large-scale data analysis and tool development.

• You thrive in a hands-on environment, working closely with technicians and operations teams to solve real-world problems.

• You have a fundamental and extensive understanding of robotics, including kinematics, dynamics, and processing complex sensor data (e.g., encoders, IMU, etc.).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing and implementing large-scale data analysis pipelines and working with time-series databases.

• Experience in a role specifically focused on robotics reliability, diagnostics, or fleet management for a complex hardware product.

• Deep expertise in statistical analysis, signal processing, and developing predictive models for hardware performance.