Software Engineer, Robot Trajectory & Controls

At Scythe, we're bringing an industry-leading autonomous battery-powered mower to market that runs on a powerful single-board computer with a custom software stack running everything from sensor interaction, to autonomy, to the cloud and user interactions. As a Robot Trajectory & Controls Engineer, you’ll work together with other engineers from across the company to understand and solve the many trajectory generation and controls problems required to effectively follow a mow path inside complex physical environments in which our autonomous robots operate. Our mowers must handle disturbance-rich environments such as slippery turf, bumpy ground, steep slopes, and tight passageways, all while carefully avoiding damage to the terrain.

You'll play a key role in developing first-of-its-kind lawnmower-specific trajectory generation and controls algorithms to make stunning stripes and tackle tough corners, all while at brisk pace to ultimately save landscapers' time. We expect you to be broadly experienced in wheeled robot control to be able to “see around corners”, to thrive in supporting a fast-paced autonomy team while self-managing your engineering contributions, and to be a collaborative, low-ego teammate who helps Scythe realize its big mission.

What you’ll do at Scythe  

• Develop, deploy, and test safe and novel algorithms for trajectory generation and control that push our domain of operation while making beautiful lawn patterns
• Write high-quality, performant, and safe code that will run on the robot
• Work with the testing team to find the best ways to test all things involving control in the field
• Work with other internal autonomy teams (localization, perception, motion planning) to make sure your work is in sync with company-wide autonomy goals
• Account for constraints with higher-level inputs (motion planning, coverage planning) and lower-level outputs (drive motors, deck blade motors)

What you know well

• Experience designing, developing, testing, and deploying product-ready software
• Proficiency in a compiled programming language such as C++, Rust, or Go, and their development in large codebases. We use Rust for most of our codebase, so you must be open to learning it and adopting it for everyday use.
• Experience in developing, deploying, and testing the components of controls systems for wheeled robots, specifically in tuning PID controllers and understanding feed-forward terms
• Experience with more advanced control systems, such as adaptive, robust, optimal, and/or model-predictive controls
• Experience with unit and integration testing, continuous integration, simulation-based testing
• Developing algorithms running in real-time in compute-constrained hardware
• Debugging real-time complex systems and finding the root cause
• Mathematical fundamentals in geometry, linear algebra, probability theory, and numerical optimization

What you’ve maybe done

• Made contributions to other autonomy subsystems: motion planning, coverage planning, localization, and/or perception
• Tested and/or simulated more sophisticated nonlinear controllers, such as feedback linearization, sliding mode control, and/or backstepping
• Spent significant time with real field robots, sensors, and physical hardware
• Interacted with non-engineer users to optimize UX
• Worked in multi-robot collaboration and planning

Why Scythe?

• Scythe is an early-stage but well-capitalized startup. Have a huge impact alongside an awesome team of experts shipping something the world has never before seen
• Competitive salary and equity compensation
• Fully-sponsored medical, vision, and dental insurance, including 75% funded dependent coverage
• 401(k) retirement plan (non-matching today)
• Headquarters near beautiful Boulder, CO. Enjoy the bounties of nature and open spaces close to home with mountain biking, hiking, skiing and more.
• Satellite offices in Austin, TX and Vero Beach, FL 
• Flexible paid time-off to let you do your best work when you want
• Highly collaborative learning culture where personal freedom, growth, and responsibility are valued
• An opportunity to have an incredible positive impact on the world

Closing

Scythe is a total compensation company, which provides employees a comprehensive salary, equity, and benefit package. However, only the minimum salary amounts are listed here. Scythe carefully considers a wide range of compensation factors, including education, years of experience, competencies and other relevant business considerations. These considerations can cause your compensation to vary along with your compensation mode preferences. The Software Engineer, Robot Trajectory & Controls position has an expected minimum annual cash salary of $120,000. The actual pay may be higher depending on your skills, qualifications, and experience. Equity and benefits packages are NOT included in this estimate. Please note that this information is provided for those hired in Colorado only, and this role is open to candidates outside of Colorado as well.

Scythe is an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other factor protected by applicable local, state or federal laws.