Staff Vehicle Controls Engineer, Emerging Markets

About ALSO.

We’re ALSO, an electric mobility company originally conceived as a part of Rivian. We’re a passionate team of builders, dreamers, doers and innovators, focused on creating entirely new (not to mention, innovative and delightful) vertically integrated, small EVs designed to meet the global mobility challenges of today and tomorrow. Our mission is to inspire everyone to ride ALSO—replacing many local car, truck and SUV miles with ones on vehicles that are more affordable, more enjoyable and 10-50x more efficient.

ALSO is building a next-generation electric motorcycle platform, and we are looking for a hands-on Staff Vehicle Controls Engineer to own the entire vehicle controls and software stack from first hardware bring-up to production release.

This is not a management role. You will be the technical owner of the vehicle’s brain — designing, implementing, and validating the control systems that define how the motorcycle behaves.

You will work directly with prototype hardware, writing and deploying real-time embedded software that controls the motor, battery, power electronics, safety systems, and rider features.

The role spans the entire vehicle development lifecycle:

• First power-on of new electric hardware

• Prototype vehicle bring-up

• Control system architecture and feature development

• Vehicle testing and tuning

• Validation and safety verification

• Production-grade software release

We are particularly interested in engineers who embrace AI-accelerated engineering workflows to dramatically increase development velocity, code quality, and validation coverage.

What You Will Do:
You will be responsible for the complete vehicle control stack, including:

• Vehicle & Powertrain Controls

  • Motor torque and speed control

  • Power electronics and inverter coordination

  • Regenerative braking control

  • Energy and battery management strategies

  • Motor torque/speed, torque arbitration, inverter coordination, regen braking

  • Throttle/torque mapping, traction and stability, ride modes, thermal/power management, body electronics control

  • Algorithm design and tuning on vehicles, support vehicle/track testing and debugging, iterate as the platform evolves

• Battery Management

  • State estimation (SoC, SoH, SoP), cell balancing, and host-side BMS algorithms

  • Battery protections across voltage, current, temperature and isolation, and safe-state behaviour

  • Pack thermal management and charging control (CC/CV, thermal envelope)

• Embedded Software:

  • Real-time embedded software for the VCU (Vehicle Control Unit), with robust supervisory state machines and fault handling

  • CAN (Controller Area Network), DBC (Database CAN) management, UDS (Unified Diagnostic Services), and DTC (Diagnostic Trouble Code) capture

  • Vehicle commanding and diagnostic flows for development, manufacturing, and service

  • Functional safety to ISO 26262: HARA, ASIL decomposition, FMEDA, and safe-state architectures

• Modelling, Bring-Up & Validation

  • MATLAB / Simulink plant and controller modelling

  • MIL, SIL, HIL - vehicle validation pipeline, dyno and on-vehicle calibration

  • First power-on, prototype bring-up, hardware integration, and hands-on bench work

  • Production-quality embedded software delivery with verification processes ensuring robustness, safety, and reliability

• AI-Accelerated Engineering

  • Define workflows that aggressively leverage AI tools across code generation, test coverage, automated documentation, model-assisted control development, and validation acceleration to dramatically increase engineering velocity while maintaining production-grade quality.

What You Will Bring:

• Degree qualified with 5+ years in embedded software, vehicle systems, robotics, or connected devices

• Strong experience with embedded firmware development

• Experience designing complex hardware-integrated software systems

• Experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering programs

• Strong experience with:

  • Embedded C/C++ and Real-time embedded systems / RTOS

  • CAN and vehicle network architectures

  • Firmware–hardware integration

  • Control theory and dynamic systems

  • Hardware debugging and integration

  • System integration and debugging

  • Electric powertrain systems and vehicle platforms

  • Battery Management Systems

  • Motor control (FOC, inverter control)

  • Traction or stability control systems

  • Functional safety (ISO 26262 or equivalent)

  • HIL / SIL / MIL validation pipelines

  • Vehicle dynamics and control

• Leadership Qualities

  • Be deeply technical and comfortable contributing to architecture and code

  • Balance hands-on engineering with delivery leadership

  • Thrive in startup-scale engineering environments

  • Build strong relationships with external engineering partners

  • Drive rapid but disciplined product development

• Tools / experience with:

  • MATLAB / Simulink or similar

  • CAN communication

  • Embedded firmware development

  • Control system modeling and simulation

Benefits

• Competitive perks and benefits for every global role

Why ALSO.

We’re passionate about helping the world find a better way to get there—wherever it is you’re headed.

We’re located in the heart of Silicon Valley and have brought together a world-class team from some of the biggest brands in the technology, automotive, cycling, outdoor recreation and retail spaces. 

Together we’re working hands-on to imagine, design and build an entirely new solution to a global set of transportation challenges.