Controls & Systems-Design Consultant

Controls & Systems-Design Consultant

The Astera Institute is seeking a Controls & Systems-Design Consultant to shape the control-system architecture and requirements of the Gen-1 DNA-origami electrostatic actuator so the device is designed, from the outset, to be observable and controllable. This is an early, fractional engagement: the consultant sets the closed-loop and system-identification constraints into the device-physics and molecular-design decisions during the months those choices are locked.

This position reports to Dr. Jeremy Barton (Astera Institute Resident, Project Lead). This is a contract position.

Responsibilities:

• Define the control-system requirements and constraints for the DNA Origami actuator–sensor system — sensor bandwidth, noise floor, and latency; actuator drive-signal range and dynamics; and end-to-end observability — and feed them into the device-physics and DNA-origami design decisions early.
• Review the field-effect (FET) position-sensor and electrostatic drive-stack designs through a controls lens, flagging choices that would make the system hard to stabilize, identify, or estimate.
• Specify what the early ensemble and single-molecule experiments must log (sampling, excitation, metadata) so the data is usable for later system identification and ML modeling of the device response.
• Sketch the closed-loop control architecture and a simulation/estimation plan (feedback stabilization, averaging, observers) that the incoming full-time Controls engineer will implement.
• Provide a clean, documented handoff to the team.

Qualifications and

Experience:

• PhD or MS (or equivalent industry depth) in controls, robotics, electrical engineering, or a related field, with hands-on closed-loop control-system design.
• Track record translating plant and sensor characteristics into design constraints, ideally for noisy, nanoscale, or precision-instrumentation systems.
• Strength in system identification and estimation (Kalman filters / observers) and in specifying data capture for later modeling.
• Comfort advising a physics and wet-lab team fractionally, with occasional on-site collaboration in Emeryville.

Location:

This position is hybrid — remote-friendly with occasional on-site collaboration in Emeryville, CA. Some travel may be required from time-to-time for in-person collaboration and work.

Compensation:

This is a contract engagement. Compensation is a competitive contract rate, commensurate with experience and the agreed scope and duration of work.

Cultural Alignment:

• Surprising problem-solver – you love finding unexpected solutions to problems we don't even know we have, and see options where others only see constraints.
• High standards, internally driven – you hold yourself to the bar of building world-class public goods without benchmarking against others.
• Embrace the tools that define great work today – Astera is building for an AI-driven future and equips the team accordingly; we see these as genuine force multipliers, not optional extras.