Senior Engineer - Hardware Integration, Sensing, and Control

At Walden Robotics, we envision a world where general-purpose robots dramatically improve the quality of life for all people—supporting us at home, at work, in factories, on farms, and beyond. To accomplish this, we are building a team of exceptional professionals who combine world-class technical skills with creative vision, grounded in humility and collaboration. **Position Summary:** You will own the software-level interface between hardware and the rest of the robot—integrating sensors, actuators, and compute into a coherent, reliable platform that the higher-level stack can depend on. You'll bring up new hardware, build the drivers and data pipelines that expose it cleanly to the system, and implement the low-level control and sensing software that makes our robots move and perceive. This role is less about firmware on bare metal and more about the systems-software layer that turns a pile of components into a robot: reliable interfaces, clean abstractions, solid real-time behavior, and the tooling to keep it all working in the field. **Core Responsibilities:** - Hardware Integration & Bring-Up: Lead the software-side integration of new sensors, actuators, and compute hardware—from driver development and interface design through system-level commissioning. - Low-Level Control: Design, implement, and tune real-time control loops for robot joints and actuators, with a focus on performance, safety, and determinism. - Sensor Pipeline Development: Build and maintain reliable, low-latency data pipelines for cameras (GMSL), LiDARs, IMUs, force/torque sensors, and other peripherals. - Real-Time Systems: Develop the low-level software that runs on our compute platforms, including NVIDIA Jetson targets, ensuring tight hardware/software co-optimization at the systems-software layer. - EtherCAT & Fieldbus Communication: Implement and maintain EtherCAT-based communication stacks for real-time servo and I/O integration; debug and optimize fieldbus timing and topology. - Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with AI and software infrastructure teams to define interfaces and ensure hardware capabilities are fully exposed to the broader robotics stack. - Diagnostics & Reliability: Develop tools for hardware-in-the-loop testing, sensor calibration, system diagnostics, and field debugging of deployed robots. **Required Qualifications:** - Hardware Integration Background: Proven experience integrating sensors and actuators into robotic or other complex electromechanical systems at the software level. - Systems Software Expertise: Strong C/C++ skills, with experience writing drivers, HALs, or systems software on embedded Linux. - Real-Time Control: Hands-on experience designing and tuning real-time control loops (torque, velocity, position) with an understanding of control theory fundamentals. - EtherCAT Experience: Practical experience bringing up an EtherCAT master/slave stack for real-time motor control or I/O; familiarity with tools such as Acontis, TwinCAT, or equivalent. - NVIDIA Jetson Platforms: Experience bringing up and optimizing software on Jetson AGX, Orin, or similar SoC platforms, including CUDA integration, device tree configuration, and peripheral bring-up. - Camera & Sensor Integration: Experience with GMSL or similar camera interfaces; comfort working with V4L2, GStreamer, or camera SDK pipelines. - System Debugging: Strong ability to debug across the hardware/software boundary using serial consoles, logic analyzers, and Linux debugging tools. - Python & C++ Workflows: Fluency in both languages across the development stack. **Preferred Qualifications:** - Experience with additional fieldbus or real-time communication protocols (CAN, CANopen, RS-485, SPI, I2C, etc.). - Experience with CUDA, NVENC, or other GPU-accelerated sensor processing pipelines. - Exposure to perception sensor calibration (camera intrinsics/extrinsics, IMU-camera alignment, LiDAR-camera fusion). - Familiarity with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and softwa…