Founding Robotics Engineer

Founding Robotics Engineer

General Astronautics is building autonomous dexterous robotic arms for microgravity environments. The bottleneck in orbital science and manufacturing isn't rockets or science , it's labor. Our robots resolve that. We're looking for a Founding Robotics Engineer to own the full robotics stack: controls, perception, software, and simulation. You will guide how our arm thinks, sees, and moves, and ensure that behavior is validated in simulation before it ever reaches orbit.

Responsibilities

• Own the robotics software stack from low-level control through high-level autonomy
• Design and implement motion planning, trajectory generation, and real-time control systems for a dexterous robotic arm in microgravity
• Develop and maintain simulation environments in NVIDIA Isaac Sim for algorithm validation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and operator training
• Build perception pipelines using cameras, depth sensors, and other modalities to enable object localization, manipulation planning, and environment understanding
• Architect the controls and software framework for autonomous task execution, grasping, assembly, manipulation, without human intervention
• Integrate with vision-language-action (VLA) models and other learned policies for generalized manipulation
• Define software interfaces between the autonomy stack, onboard compute, and mechanical/avionics systems
• Collaborate with the mechanical engineer to co-optimize actuator selection, sensor placement, and system architecture
• Support hardware testing and commissioning, put hands on the robot

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline
• 2+ years of experience in robotics software development, including controls, motion planning, or perception
• Strong proficiency in ROS2 and real-time Linux environments
• Experience with robot kinematics, dynamics, and trajectory planning
• Proficiency in Python and C++
• Hands-on experience integrating and commissioning robotic hardware

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Experience with NVIDIA Isaac Sim or comparable simulation platforms (Gazebo, MuJoCo, PyBullet)
• Experience with dexterous manipulation, grasp planning, or force/torque-controlled assembly
• Familiarity with vision-language-action models or other learned manipulation policies
• Experience with multi-camera perception systems, AprilTag or fiducial localization, or SLAM
• Experience with Franka, Kinova, UR, or similar research/industrial arms
• Background in space robotics, surgical robotics, or other high-reliability autonomous systems
• Familiarity with libfranka, MoveIt2, or similar frameworks
• Experience designing for fault tolerance, safe autonomy, and graceful degradation
• Strong communication skills, you'll interface heavily with the mechanical, avionics, and science teams

ITAR / Citizenship Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.