Controls Engineering Lead

We believe how we say farewell matters. Our mission is to transform the end‑of‑life experience by offering families a beautiful, sustainable alternative to cremation and burial.

Using our proprietary vessel technology, we transform a body into nutrient‑rich soil in just 45 days, returning life to the earth and leaving a meaningful legacy. Families may receive the soil to scatter, plant, or share, while the remainder is donated to conservation projects.

Controls Engineering Lead – responsible for the control logic that powers Earth’s soil transformation vessels and ensures consistent, safe, and scalable behavior across our fleet.

As a hands‑on technical contributor and team leader, you will shape the technical vision and execution of the controls system across disciplines.

• Collaborate cross‑functionally with Science, Hardware, and Operations to translate biological process requirements into automatable control strategies and algorithms.
• Define control system requirements across Hardware, Firmware, and Software, and partner with Product to develop the Controls group vision and roadmap.
• Drive successful execution of the Controls group roadmap across disciplines.
• Define and maintain clear interfaces between control logic, firmware, supervisory orchestration software, and HMI layers.
• Partner with Hardware and Firmware to ensure sensors, actuators, and embedded implementations support required control behavior.
• Partner with Software to ensure local and supervisory control implementation is accurate, reliable, and observable.
• Own the control system architecture for the vessel execution layer (control logic, state machines, safety behavior).
• Develop and maintain frameworks to model, simulate, and validate system behavior prior to deployment.
• Support commissioning and iteration during vessel bring‑up and facility rollouts.
• Mentor engineers across disciplines in controls thinking, system modeling, and safe automation practices.

You are accountable for vessel behavior, not for building dashboards, cloud platforms, or general‑purpose infrastructure.

You're a controls engineer who thrives at the intersection of hardware, software, science, and process automation, and enjoys making complex systems simple, reliable, and observable.

• Think in dynamics, constraints, and failure modes.
• Comfortable writing code, tuning loops, modeling dynamics, or diagnosing root causes on a production floor.
• Ability to be the controls authority while collaborating pragmatically with adjacent disciplines.
• Motivated by the idea that your work directly helps regenerate the planet.

Required:

• 8+ years of experience in controls, automation, robotics, or similar physical systems.
• Strong foundation in classical control theory and practical control‑system design.
• Experience modeling, simulating, and validating dynamic systems.
• Experience defining and implementing control behavior that executes locally and safely without cloud dependency on embedded and local edge environments.
• Proficiency in C++ and/or Python for control or embedded‑adjacent development.
• Ability to reason clearly about failure modes, degraded operation, and recovery.
• Strong cross‑functional communication skills across Hardware, Firmware, Software, Science, Product, and Operations.
• Strong ability to manage multiple priorities under time constraints and ensure complete, high‑quality execution.
• Proven technical leader, collaborator, and communicator who can energize teams, challenge the status quo, and drive change.

Preferred:

• Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, or related field – or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience with thermal, biological, or batch‑process control systems.
• Experience with industrial communication protocols (MQTT, Modbus, CAN, OPC UA, etc.).
• Experience with calibration and tuning of sensors.
• Familiarity with HMI/SCADA or supervisory control systems.
• Familiarity with digital twins, hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing, and real‑time simulation.
• Familiarity with modern software development and Dev Ops practices (Git, CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes).

Travel will be required to the Seattle area for regular in‑person collaboration and may include occasional travel to other U.S. locations for commissioning projects.

• Mission‑driven work that makes a lasting impact.
• Competitive salary and equity package.
• Hybrid work environment (remote‑friendly, Seattle preferred).
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan.
• Unlimited PTO.

At Earth, our mission is to transform the end‑of‑life experience – creating a process that restores the planet instead of harming it. If you’re inspired by solving complex technical challenges in service of something deeply human and profoundly environmental, we’d love to hear from you.