Shanghai
Full time
At Mentee Robotics, we are redefining humanoid automation with an AI-first approach - combining perception, reasoning, and dexterous manipulation into fully autonomous systems that continuously learn and adapt. We are now expanding with a new robotics Engineering center in China, working hand-in-hand with our engineering teams in headquarters. Its mission: to rapidly develop our next-generation full-size humanoid and bring it to life - a walking, working platform that becomes the foundation of our next generation of products. This is a small, senior, hands-on team where speed of iteration is the core value. We are looking for a Motion Control Engineer to own the control algorithms of every joint in our humanoid - jointly with the embedded team, who implement your designs on the Motor Controller PCB. This is pure actuator control: FOC, loop design, estimation, and compensation. Whole-body behavior lives in learned policies; your job is to make every joint execute its commands perfectly.
Who you are?
- A motor control specialist who can take a noisy, nonlinear physical joint and make it track like a servo catalog page
- Equally fluent in control theory and in what the silicon can actually compute in a 60 kHz loop
- Data-driven: you tune with measurements, plots, and system identification - not by feel alone
Responsibilities:
- Define and validate the motor control methodology across the robot: FOC and commutation strategies for BLDC motors in quasi-direct-drive configurations with planetary reduction
- Design current, velocity, and position/torque control loops; define bandwidths, filtering, anti-windup, and saturation handling
- Develop torque estimation, friction and cogging compensation, and observers for joint state
- Define joint-level safety limits and fault-handling behavior together with embedded
- Guide and verify the embedded implementation of your algorithms on the Motor Controller PCB; co-own everything running on that board
- Design and execute structured characterization tests on the joint dyno: torque, speed, resolution, responsiveness, thermal behavior
- Deliver validated actuator models and control limitations to the Sim2Real and RL teams - your measured envelopes become their training constraints
- Drive improvements in actuation repeatability and responsiveness through precise measurement and feedback
Requirements:
- B.Sc. or M.Sc. in Electrical, Mechanical, or Control Engineering (or equivalent experience)
- 8+ years in motor control systems or motion system integration
- Deep hands-on experience with FOC and current/velocity/position loop design for BLDC motors
- Familiarity with planetary gear systems and QDD architectures, and their impact on control and sensing
- Proven ability to define and lead performance test plans from lab setup to interpretation
- Comfortable using lab tools (oscilloscopes, encoders, current sensors) to evaluate dynamic behavior under load and in closed loop
- Impedance control and proprioceptive actuation experience
Advantages:
- Experience in robotic or humanoid actuation (e.g., actuator teams at Unitree, Wuji) or servo drive companies (e.g., Kinco, Inovance)
- Familiarity with harmonic gear systems and their control implications
- Python for scripting, system identification, and data analysis
- Understanding of how sensor noise, latency, and actuation limits affect learned whole-body policies
- Comfortable communicating technical topics in English with international teams
