Staff Software Engineer - Humanoid Controls at Apptronik
Austin, TX
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Aug 5, 2026
Austin, TX
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Staff-level robotics controls engineer role on the Motion Control & Planning team at a humanoid robotics company. The position owns the full controls stack — whole-body control for both a wheeled-base platform and a biped, learning-based hand control, mobile manipulation, and teleoperation — from algorithm development through physical hardware deployment. It also carries a strong technical leadership mandate: setting roadmap direction, mentoring engineers, and coordinating across locomotion, manipulation, and RL teams.
Staff level · 8+ years · Austin, TX · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 85 people in the Austin, TX area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 20–130
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $137,069 (middle half $106,287–$172,440).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 6, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The posting does not name Austin, TX explicitly, but Apptronik is headquartered there; the role appears on-site given physical hardware requirements and no remote language.
The experience requirement is stated as '8+ years (or 4+ with a PhD)' — 8 is used as the overall years minimum per the minimum stated.
The degree requirement is listed as 'MS or PhD … or equivalent experience,' so no hard degree gate is set.
Whole-body control is described with multiple interchangeable formulations (WBC/OSC, QP-based control, MPC); MPC is listed separately as it is a distinct named method also called out.
Safety-standard certifications (ISO 13849, ISO 10218, IEC 61508) appear only under the Preferred section.
Legged locomotion and dexterous/in-hand manipulation also appear only under Preferred.
SOC classification carries medium confidence: the role is deeply algorithmic/controls-engineering work that sits at the boundary of software development and a specialized robotics occupation not cleanly captured by standard SOC codes; 15-1252 is the closest available code.
Read the full posting
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