Senior Motor Control Software Engineer

Company Overview

Imagine a piloted air taxi that takes off vertically, then quietly carries you and your fellow passengers over the congested city streets below, enabling you to spend more time with the people and places that matter most. Since 2009, our team has worked steadily to make this dream a reality. We’ve designed and tested many generations of prototype aircraft capable of serving in a network of electric air taxis.

We’re looking for talented, committed individuals to join our team as we push onward toward certifying the Joby aircraft, scaling our manufacturing, and launching our initial commercial service.

This senior engineer will play a key role in a small, fast-moving team and participate in architecture, design, and implementation of motor control systems within our electric-powered, fly-by-wire aircraft. This engineer will work closely with the hardware, mechanical, integration, and flight-testing teams to design, develop, test and improve system-level behaviors.

• Position sensorless control of permanent magnet synchronous motors; including advanced inverter pulse-width modulation, position and velocity estimation, current control, fault detection, and efficiency optimization
• Closed loop position control of servo actuation systems; including redundant position sensors and multi-phase motors controlled from separate servo drives
• Optimization of motor controls using MATLAB Simulink with hand coding capability
• Assure inverter and motor systems meet performance requirements via controls algorithm development, implementation and testing
• Oversee dynamometer testing and interpretation of data for controls development, validation and improvement
• Tuning and calibration of complete systems on dynamo meters, on test stands, and on the aircraft
• Unit-tests for build environment, sub-system validation testing, integration testing, flight testing, software in the loop testing

• University degree in computer science, computer engineering, or electrical engineering
• 5+ years of full-time industry experience
• Expert knowledge of ac motor control design principles and applications including position sensorless field oriented control, PWM strategies, current control, velocity estimation
• Expert knowledge of MATLAB Simulink model-based design for controls development
• Knowledge of real time bare-metal firmware development
• Knowledge of object-oriented programming methodology and multi-layered system architectures
• Knowledge of multi-threaded systems
• Experience with basic electronics debugging tools: oscilloscope, logic analyzer, power analyzer
• Experience with modern integrated development environments and debuggers
• Basic understanding of version control technologies
• Exposure to other languages such as: python, C#, C, SQL

• Master of Science or Doctoral degree in electrical engineering or mechanical engineering focusing on power electronics and/or motor controls
• 8+ years of full-time industry experience
• Track record of working on safety critical systems and knowledge of safety standards
• Expert knowledge of control system design and principles of feedback control including PID control and advanced control techniques and their applications in the servo systems
• Expert knowledge of creating mathematical models of servo systems for analyses and simulations
• Expert knowledge of electro-mechanical systems focusing on interactions between electrical and mechanical components in servo systems

Compensation at Joby is a combination of base pay and Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). The target base pay for this position is $129,400 - $172,600/yr. The compensation package will be determined by job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Joby also offers a comprehensive benefits package, including paid time off, healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan with a company match, an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP), short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, and more.

Joby is an Equal Opportunity Employer.