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Staff Firmware Engineer - Motor Controls

1X Technologies· Software Engineering
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San Carlos, CA$200k - $300k + equityFull-timePosted 3mo ago

About the role

Staff Firmware Engineer focused on motor control firmware for BLDC/PMSM actuators in a humanoid home-robot platform. Responsible for robust, safe, and maintainable control loops (FOC, space-vector PWM, current/velocity/position loops), sensor integration, fault protection, and hardware-software interfacing across motor drive subsystems. On-site role based in San Carlos, CA, with equity alongside a competitive compensation package.

Responsibilities

  • Develop motor control firmware for BLDC/PMSM actuators, including field-oriented control (FOC), space-vector PWM, and current, velocity and position loops
  • Integrate and calibrate position sensing: absolute and incremental encoders, Hall sensors, commutation offsets and multi-turn tracking
  • Tune control loops for high bandwidth, low torque ripple and low acoustic noise, including feedforward, friction and cogging compensation
  • Implement torque and impedance control modes that support safe, compliant interaction with people
  • Build fault detection and protection for overcurrent, overvoltage, undervoltage, overtemperature, stall and sensor failures, with safe torque-off behavior
  • Design motor drive communication with deterministic timing to the central controller
  • Bring up new motor driver boards and support hardware design reviews for gate drivers, current sensing and power stages
  • Test and validate firmware releases on the bench and on full robots, and build tools for automated tuning, logging and regression testing

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of embedded firmware development in C/C++ (7+ for senior roles)
  • Shipped motor control firmware for BLDC or PMSM motors, including FOC and cascaded control loops
  • Solid grasp of motor physics and power electronics: inverters, gate drivers, current sensing, dead time and PWM
  • Experience with encoders and sensor interfaces such as SPI, BiSS-C, SSI or ABZ
  • Hands-on experience with EtherCAT/CAN or another real-time fieldbus
  • Comfort with interrupt-driven, hard real-time code on MCUs such as STM32, TI C2000 or similar
  • Hardware debugging with oscilloscopes, current probes, logic analyzers and dynamometers

Skills

Required:Embedded C/C++Motor control (FOC, FOC cascaded loops, SVPWM)Sensor integration (encoders, Hall sensors, SPI/BiSS-C/SSI/ABZ)Real-time communication ( EtherCAT/CAN, fieldbus )Debugging hardware-firmware interfacesSafety-first engineering

Benefits

  • Salary Range: $200,000 – $300,000 + Equity
  • Health, dental, and vision insurance
  • 401(k) with company match
  • Paid time off and holidays
Last updated Oct 18, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About 1X Technologies

1X | Home Robots

We're an AI and robotics company based in Palo Alto, California. We create safe humanoid robots that do your chores and offer personalized assistance.

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