Staff Control Software Engineer in London

Humanoid is the first AI and robotics company in the UK, creating the world's most advanced, reliable, commercially scalable, and safe humanoid robots. Our first humanoid robot HMND 01 is a next‐gen labour automation unit, providing highly efficient services across various use cases, starting with industrial applications.

Our Mission
At Humanoid we strive to create the world's leading, commercially scalable, safe, and advanced humanoid robots that seamlessly integrate into daily life and amplify human capacity.

Vision
In a world where artificial intelligence opens up new horizons, our faith in its potential unveils a new outlook where, together, humans and machines build a new future filled with knowledge, inspiration, and incredible discoveries. The development of a functional humanoid robot underpins an era of abundance and well‐being where poverty will disappear, and people will be able to choose what they want to do. We believe that providing a universal basic income will eventually be a true evolution of our civilization.

Solution
As the demands on our built environment rise, labour shortages loom. With the world's workforce increasingly moving away from undesirable tasks, the manufacturing, construction, and logistics industries critical to our daily lives are left exposed. By deploying our general‐purpose humanoid robots in environments deemed hazardous or monotonous, we envision a future where human well‐being is safeguarded while closing the gaps in critical global labour needs.

About The Role
We are seeking an experienced Staff Control Software Engineer to lead the development, integration, and maintenance of our production‐grade control software for humanoid robotic systems. This role sits at the intersection of control and software engineering – focused on turning advanced control strategies into robust, maintainable, and validated production systems. You'll be responsible for ensuring that the control stack powering our robots is deterministic, safe, tested, and deployable at scale. You bring both deep robotics control experience (10 years in robotic system development) and strong software engineering discipline – designing architectures that perform reliably in real‐time environments.

What You'll Do

• Control Software Architecture Development
  • Design and maintain modular, real‐time control architectures supporting locomotion, manipulation, and teleoperation.
  • Implement high‐performance control loops and middleware interfaces for deterministic, safe operation.
  • Industrialize algorithms, ensuring production readiness, maintainability, and performance.
  • Establish clear software boundaries and interfaces between motion planning, control, and hardware layers.
• Production‐Grade Software Engineering
  • Translate research prototypes into scalable, maintainable, and testable control software.
  • Apply modern software development practices (CI/CD, code reviews, testing frameworks, documentation).
  • Define reliability, latency, and safety metrics and enforce them throughout the control stack.
  • Lead the integration of real‐time control software on embedded or Linux‐based systems, ensuring consistent behavior across hardware targets.
• Testing, Validation & Release Management
  • Develop automated testing frameworks (simulation, hardware‐in‐the‐loop, regression, and performance testing).
  • Drive release and version management of the control stack, ensuring stability across branches and deployments.
  • Conduct profiling, benchmarking, and performance validation on robotic hardware.
  • Define release protocols to ensure reproducibility and verifiable system behavior.
• Embedded Safety & Redundancy
  • Implement software‐based fail‐safes, watchdogs, and redundancy mechanisms for safety‐critical control paths.
  • Work closely with hardware and safety teams to ensure fault detection, graceful degradation, and safe state transitions.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship
  • Lead by example through hands‐on coding, code reviews, and system‐level debugging.
  • Mentor engineers on control software best practices, testing methodologies, and performance optimization.
  • Contribute to the long‐term control software roadmap, guiding architecture evolution and quality standards.

We're Looking For

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Robotics, Control, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience developing robotics control software for real‐time systems.
• Proven expertise in C++ (modern standards) and Python for software implementation, testing, and automation.
• Strong background in control theory, robot kinematics & dynamics, and real‐time control systems.
• Experience in deploying and validating control software both in simulation and on physical robotic platforms.
• Solid understanding of software architecture, version control (Git), CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing.
• Excellent debugging, profiling, and system performance optimization skills.
• Track record of shipping production‐quality robotics software, not research prototypes.
• Proven experience managing software lifecycle, including release management and cross‐team integration.

Nice to have

• Experience with ROS2, real‐time Linux, or RTOS environments.
• Familiarity with relevant tools and libraries like Eigen, Pinocchio, Placo, PyTorch, MuJoCo, etc.
• Familiarity with safety‐critical systems, redundancy, and failover mechanisms.
• Background in whole‐body control, actuator coordination, or real‐time trajectory execution.
• Experience in Joint/Cartesian Impedance and force control.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to influence architecture decisions and engineering culture.
• Experience in learning‐based control methods (e.g. RL, imitation learning).

What We Offer

• Competitive salary plus participation in our Stock Option Plan.
• Paid vacation with adjustments based on your location to comply with local labor laws.
• Travel opportunities to our Vancouver and Boston offices.
• Office perks: free breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and regular team events.
• Freedom to influence the product and own key initiatives.
• Collaboration with top‐tier engineers, researchers, and product experts in AI and robotics.
• Startup culture prioritising speed, transparency, and minimal bureaucracy.

How to Apply
Does this role sound like the perfect fit for you? Fill in the form and include links or files that showcase the best of what you've built and achieved. Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Humanoid by 2x.