Controls Engineer (Robotics)

We believe robots will be the next chapter in making physical labor safer and more affordable. But, nearly nine out of ten American factories and warehouses don’t have a single robot. Tutor Intelligence is changing that.

We build robots that go straight into real factories and warehouses, to do real work, with real impact. Our robot Cassie does back-breaking work, moving boxes, pallets, and bulk goods for family-owned manufacturers to some of the largest brands in the world. Our robot Sonny does handwork, using two arms to achieve human-like dexterity in picking and packing. Every robot learns on the job, and each one we deploy makes the next one more capable, more affordable, and faster to put to work.

Founded at MIT and headquartered in Watertown, MA, we do it all in-house: the robotics hardware, the machine learning, and the field deployment and service. We’re a team of researchers, engineers, technicians, operators, and sellers who love building things and solving hard problems.

Our mission is grand: robots everywhere, for the common good, raising the standard of living across North America, and then the world.

The Role

Our robots work in customer facilities with people nearby. The code that decides how an arm moves, how fast, and how it stops is what keeps those people safe. We're looking for a controls engineer to own it.

The work is controls: joint limits, speed limits, stopping distances and stopping times, contact and collision behavior, the loop that turns a motion command into torque, and the monitoring that detects when that loop misbehaves. It is also software work. The code lives in a large codebase that changes every week, and the safety-critical parts of it have to be written, organized, tested, and reviewed so they stay correct through those changes. The person we want has worked in a codebase where a mistake had physical consequences, has written and organized a lot of code there, and is comfortable with the physics underneath it.

You will build the hardware-in-the-loop test bench that runs the control code against real arms and real stop circuits, in continuous integration. You will also keep the evidence current: the measurements and tests that show the arm stops when it should, updated as the code, the arms, and the applications change.

The formal side of safety, risk assessments and the standards customers ask about, is part of the role. We will teach it.

What You'll Do

• Own the safety-critical control code for our arms: Limits, stop behavior, collision response, and the monitoring around the control loop
• Work on the control loop itself: Timing, stability, and failure modes, from the motion command down to the drives
• Organize the code so it can be trusted: Keep the safety-critical parts small, separated, tested, and reviewable, and set the rules for how other code touches them
• Build hardware-in-the-loop testing: A bench and a continuous-integration path that run the control code against real arms and real safety hardware
• Keep the evidence current: Stopping-time measurements and the tests behind the safety argument, updated whenever the code or the hardware changes
• Document the design: Decisions, limits, and the reasons for them, in a form other engineers follow

What We're Looking For

• Real-time control experience on physical systems: Robot arms, vehicles, aircraft, or similar. You have written control code that moved hardware and handled its failures
• Experience in a mission-critical codebase: You have written and organized a large amount of code where mistakes had physical consequences, and you know what that requires of structure, testing, and review
• Comfortable with the physics: Dynamics, torque, inertia, stopping distances, contact. You can reason about what the arm will do
• Strong systems software: C++ and Python or similar, real-time behavior on Linux, and safety-critical code kept separate from the rest
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing: You have built or used a rig that put real hardware in the loop with software under test

Nice to Have

• Exposure to safety standards for robots or machinery, such as ISO 10218, ISO 13849, or ANSI/RIA R15.06
• EtherCAT or other fieldbus experience with servo drives
• Experience with safety-rated controllers or certified functional safety components
• Experience in warehouses, manufacturing, or other environments where robots and people share space

Why Tutor?

Whether you’re designing robots, closing deals, running deployments, or creating the processes that help us scale, your work doesn’t sit on a shelf. It shows up on real production floors, making physical work safer and more affordable.

Our team of 160+ is driven by curiosity and a genuine love of building. Everyone here takes real ownership, learns fast, and holds a high bar while having each other’s backs. If you love hard problems and creating things that didn’t exist before, you’ll fit right in.

We take care of our team so they can do their best work. At Tutor, you’ll get:

• Fully employer-covered health insurance, so you’re protected without the premium.
• A managed 401(k) to help you plan for the future.
• Generous time off: unlimited PTO and all federal holidays off for full-time salaried employees, and 16+ days of accrued paid time off plus 1.5x pay on federal holidays for hourly employees.
• Regular in-office meals and team social events throughout the year.

As Tutor grows, so will our benefits. We’re continuing to invest in ways to support our team at work and beyond.

Tutor Intelligence is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds.