Engineering Manager - Controls

Apptronik · Austin, TX

Level: Manager
Team: Controls
Experience asked: 4+ years
Industry: Industrial
Posted: Today

The role in 30 seconds

A management controls role at Apptronik (industrial) in Austin, TX. Simulation & Hardware Validation: Ensure the control stack behaves consistently in simulation and on hardware, and support robot bring-up, calibration tooling, and root-cause analysis of issues found in testing and in the field.

They ask for: 4+ years
Tools it names: Root cause, Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ), Robotics, Tooling

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of October 26, 2026

Controls Engineer roles in Texas: typical posted base $97k–$158k.

Median of the low and high ends of 12 live postings that list pay, out of 89 controls engineer openings in Texas, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

Texas plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 88 other live controls postings in Texas.

Base pay: Not listed in this posting
Experience asked: More than usual (4+ vs 3+)

Skills these teams ask for most

PLC 78%
Automation 75%
✓ Robotics 42%
Python 27%
EHS / safety 27%
✓ Root cause 24%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

Stands out: this posting asks for Tooling, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.

It asks for 4+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Lifts up to 15 lbs

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 Apptronik
Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find 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.
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: Apptronik in Austin

5 other open roles at this site.

Senior Manufacturing Engineer - Assembly · Manufacturing · Senior
Manager, Manufacturing Engineering · Manufacturing · Manager
Controls Engineer - Actuation · Controls
Manufacturing Engineer (Supply Chain) - Electromechanical · Reliability
Product Quality Manager · Quality · Manager

Full description from ApptronikAs posted on their careers site.Show

Job summary

The Engineering Manager - Controls leads a team of software engineers responsible for the real-time control software that runs on our humanoid robots. This role is accountable for the team's people and delivery: hiring and developing engineers, driving the team's deliverables within the broader Controls roadmap, and making sure the control stack is reliable, well tested, and ready for production.

This is a player-leader role. The ideal candidate brings a strong background in robot control and real-time software, stays close enough to the code to review designs and unblock engineers, and partners closely with the firmware, embedded software, learning, teleoperation, and test teams to bring new capabilities from simulation onto the robot fleet.

or KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

◆Real-Time Control Software: Oversee development of the real-time control framework that runs on the robot, including robot drivers, state estimation, control interfaces, and the integration of learned policies and teleoperation.
◆Execution & Planning: Plan and drive the team's deliverables in coordination with other leads within the broader Controls roadmap. Break program goals into deliverable work, track progress against milestones, and raise risks to schedule or quality early.
◆Team Leadership & Growth: Hire, manage, and mentor a team of controls and software engineers. Set clear priorities and ownership, give regular feedback, and develop engineers and tech leads into stronger technical contributors.
◆Quality & Release: Maintain a high bar for code quality through design reviews, code reviews, and automated testing, including simulation and hardware-in-the-loop regression tests. Own the team's part of the software release process and the stability of what ships to the fleet.
◆Iteration Speed: Keep the control software and tooling fast to work with, so engineers can quickly try new approaches to hard robotics problems in simulation and on hardware.
◆Simulation & Hardware Validation: Ensure the control stack behaves consistently in simulation and on hardware, and support robot bring-up, calibration tooling, and root-cause analysis of issues found in testing and in the field.
◆Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with the firmware, embedded software, learning, teleoperation, systems, and test teams to align on interfaces, priorities, and schedules, and represent the team in stakeholder reviews.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

✓MS or PhD in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
✓4+ years of relevant industry experience in robot controls or robotics software (or 2+ years with a PhD), including 1+ year managing engineers and 2+ years as a technical lead.

Requirements

✓Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
✓Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times
✓Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen
✓Hearing and speech to communicate
✓This is a direct hire. Please, no outside Agency solicitations.

Show full description ↓

Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots to support humanity in every facet of life. Our flagship humanoid robot, Apollo, is built to collaborate thoughtfully with people, starting with critical industries such as manufacturing and logistics, with future applications in healthcare, the home, and beyond.

We operate at the cutting edge of Applied AI, applying our expertise across the full robotics stack to solve some of society's most important problems. You will join a team dedicated to bringing Apollo to market at scale, tackling the complex challenges like safety, commercialization, and mass production to change the world for the better.

Technical Skills (Must-Have)

•Controls Background: Strong foundation in robot kinematics, dynamics, and control, with hands-on experience in areas such as whole-body control, manipulation, or teleoperation.
•Real-Time Software: Experience building or leading development of real-time robotic software in C++, including multi-threaded execution, timing, and hardware interfaces.
•Hardware Deployment: A track record of taking control software from simulation to physical robots and supporting it in testing and deployment.
•People Leadership: Experience managing or leading engineers, including hiring, mentoring, performance feedback, and setting team priorities.
•Execution: Experience planning and delivering software in a fast-moving R&D environment, balancing near-term deliverables with long-term code health.

Good to Have

•Humanoid or Legged Robots: Experience with humanoid, legged, or mobile manipulation platforms.
•State Estimation & System Identification: Experience with state estimation and system identification for robotic systems.
•Learned Policy Integration: Experience integrating reinforcement learning or other learned policies into a real-time control stack.
•Simulation Environments: Experience with physics engines such as MuJoCo, IsaacSim, or Drake.
•Testing Infrastructure: Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing, continuous integration, and release processes for robotics software.
•Robotics Middleware: Familiarity with ROS 2 or similar robotics middleware.