Motor Controls Engineer (Electrical/PCB Design)
Anduril Industries · Costa Mesa, CA
- Level
- Engineer
- Team
- Controls
- Experience asked
- 3+ years
- Industry
- Aerospace & defense
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
An engineer-level controls role at Anduril Industries (aerospace & defense) in Costa Mesa, CA. BS, MS or PhD in an engineering field, or equivalent work experience.
- They ask for
- 3+ years
- Tools it names
- Robotics
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026
Controls Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $124k–$179k.
Median of the low and high ends of 56 live postings that list pay, out of 109 controls engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 108 other live controls postings in California.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- Less than usual (3+ vs 5+)
Typical $124k–$179k, from 54 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- Automation 66%
- PLC 47%
- ✓ Robotics 43%
- Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 38%
- Python 33%
- Root cause 20%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Controls team at Anduril Industries
We found 3 people at this company and state: 2 in this kind of role, 1 leaders. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓
- 2
Send a short, curious note
One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.
Write to Andy → (free) - 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
Apply with someone vouching for you
If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa
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Full description from Anduril IndustriesAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Required qualifications
- ✓Experience in an immersive technical project (collegiate project teams or professional settings)
- ✓Demonstrated leadership skills (collegiate project teams or professional settings)
- ✓3+ years of electrical/design experience in a professional setting
- ✓Experience in PCB design and any ECAD (Altium, KiCAD, etc)
- ✓Hands-on prototyping (soldering, board assembly, harnessing)
- ✓Experience with any: controls/actuation, robotics, and or motor/servo drive systems (BLDC/brushed motor controller design and servo control systems)
- ✓Familiarity with microcontrollers, power conversion and system integration
- ✓Ability to read, interpret, and manipulate schematics, wiring diagrams, and layouts.
- ✓High competence with, and fluid use of, engineering first principles
- ✓Strong organizational skills
- ✓BS, MS or PhD in an engineering field, or equivalent work experience
- ✓Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Top Secret security clearance
Preferred qualifications
- ✓Experience in bare metal microcontroller design (STMicro, TI, NXP, etc) from schematic to bringup
- ✓Outstanding leadership and interpersonal skills
- ✓Familiarity with designing for rugged environments
- ✓Experience in bringing up device trees on embedded systems with a variety of connected sensors
- ✓Experience with Electro-Mechanical and Electrical design concepts
- ✓Experience in developing a variety of electronics hardware products (UAVs, wearables, firearms, high power electric propulsion, optical systems, or other complex mechanisms)
- ✓Experience in characterizing circuits at both schematic and board level
- ✓Familiarity with wireless communication protocols
- ✓Experience with microcontroller wired communication protocols (USB, MIPI CSI2, SPI, I2C, CAN, CANFD, UART/RS232/RS422/RS485)
- ✓Practical experience with electrical engineering tools (Oscilloscopes, power supplies, electronic loads, multimeters)
$100,000 — $125,000 USD
Benefits
At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits .
Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams
Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.
To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:
No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.
- ✓Please always verify communications:
- ✓Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an @anduril.com address.
- ✓Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please ve
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
About the job
Anduril is seeking a Motor Controls Engineer, Electrical to join the team at our Costa Mesa HQ. Here you will work on core product development for complex systems, including but not limited to optical systems, batteries, mechanisms, control systems, and sensors. The role requires high ownership and frequent collaboration with other core disciplines. The ideal candidate would be practical, hands-on and a self starter. High growth potential is possible as well as additional leadership opportunities.
What you’ll do
- •Execute rapid evaluation of engineering concepts in a wide range of fields
- •Identify partners in industry to engage with, and manage early vendor relationships
- •Perform trade studies and physics-based analysis of blue-sky engineering problems
- •Manage internal and external market research and comparisons
- •Design, implementation, and test of complex electro-mechanical systems
- •High level system ownership with large levels of professional autonomy
- •Lead design reviews, run analysis, visit vendors, define and execute hardware test plans
- •Build prototypes, analyze failures, and transition successful projects into production
- •Support critical hardware demonstrations with customers as needed
- •Travel to test sites as needed
- •Use first principles physics as a basis for every decision
- •Wear many hats
