Reflex Robotics | Controls Engineer | new york city, ny

Company OverviewReflex Robotics is building affordable ($10k) humanoid robots to automate dangerous and repetitive tasks in manufacturing / logistics. We envision a future where everyone has their own "RobotGPT" that can do the boring stuff and help them focus on more fulfilling work.We are a two-year old startup backed by Khosla Ventures, with $60m/year of revenue lined up pending successful pilots with e-commerce warehouses in 2024. How does it work?Our robots are designed & built in-house by an engineering team that led development of the Stretch robot at Boston Dynamics & key parts of the Model S,X,Y production line at Tesla. Reflex robots are high-performance, low-inertia, and designed for low-cost manufacturing.We've also built a tele-operation system by which someone far away can basically "play a video game" and control the robots in real-time. This lets us do a LOT of tasks on day one, increase autonomy over time, and still have remote operators as needed to ensure that our robots don't make mistakes.Key company beliefsHaving high quality proprietary data is the key to building generational AI companies. Tesla FSD has 1B+ miles of driver data & ChatGPT has the whole internet - but there is no good dataset in robotics.It is pointless to focus on overly academic things (e.g. maximal torque density, 0.1mm actuator precision, getting bipedal robots to walk) instead of actual usefulness to customers.Human prosperity increases super-linearly with increased automation. Freedom from dull & repetitive tasks allows us to focus on more rewarding pursuits.An insane work ethic is necessary for outsized success.What we're looking forWe are looking for a controls engineer to join our team! We're still under ten people - so there's a ton of opportunity for high equity & high product ownership. You should strongly consider applying if:You've controlled the motion of real-world hardware before, not just in simulation - e.g. nanometer-scale control of EUV lithography machines, or making a quadruped do a backflipYou like to understand the entire system you're working with - e.g. you care about details like time-sync btwn two processors, or the stiffness properties of the mechanical assemblyYou have a good understanding of model predictive control, nonlinear optimization, sensor fusion strategiesYou pride yourself on writing robust code that others can trust for yearsWe primarily use C++, with some Python for prototyping. We don't use ROS.You'd be joining at a time when there's working hardware, working remote-operation software, and a qualified set of pilot customers - the company is de-risked enough to see the hazy outlines of success, but not so large that there's no remaining upside. Come join us!

Created: 2024-11-26