# Staff Firmware Engineer - Motor Controls at 1X

1X is hiring a Staff Firmware Engineer - Motor Controls. It pays $200k-$300k a year and Level rates it Works on AI ●●●○; you can [apply on Level](https://jobsbylevel.com/go/862e6164-3a4f-484f-a0e2-ef7431f03768?utm_medium=ai-agent).

AI Level 3, AI centrality 70 out of 100. San Carlos, CA.

## Details

- Company: [1X](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/1x)
- AI level: AI Level 3 (score 70 out of 100)
- Location: San Carlos, CA
- Salary: $200k-$300k
- Posted: June 17, 2026
- Apply: https://jobsbylevel.com/go/862e6164-3a4f-484f-a0e2-ef7431f03768?utm_medium=ai-agent

## Prepare for this job

The job page lists 5 likely interview questions for this offer, with a CV checklist: https://jobsbylevel.com/jobs/staff-firmware-engineer-motor-controls-at-1x-577d2e

## Description

About 1X We’re building humanoid robots that work in home - doing the chores, handling the tasks, and giving people their time back. Simple, but it’s not. To do this right, we have to solve robotics, AI, manufacturing - at the same time, at scale, in a form factor that has to be safe enough to live with your family. If you’re inspired by this, you’ll thrive here. We’ve been at this since 2014 and we’re at the point where the hard problems are behind us and the hard work is in front of us. NEO is our flagship - a home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world alongside real people. We’re not demoing it - we’re shipping it. We’re excited to meet you, if this excites you. If you’ve spent your career working on problems that matter and want to see them actually reach the world - this is that moment. We’re scaling, we’re hiring with intention, and we need people who want to build something that will genuinely change how humans spend their time - safely creating abundance for all. About the Team The Firmware team owns the embedded software layer that powers every hardware subsystem of our humanoid robot from distributed communication bus architecture and power management to actuator and motor drive control. We sit at the intersection of hardware and software, and our work is directly on the critical path to every product milestone: without reliable firmware, the robot cannot move, charge, or operate safely. If you want to build the foundational software for a new category of physical AI, this is where that work happens. Your Charter Own the motor control firmware that turns current into motion in every joint of NEO, and make it robust, safe and maintainable. Your control loops decide how smooth, quiet and compliant NEO feels around people, and how fast the team can move as the actuator platform grows. Key Outcomes Develop motor control firmware for BLDC/PMSM actuators, including field-oriented control (FOC), space-vector PWM, and current, velocity and position loops Integrate and calibrate position sensing: absolute and incremental encoders, Hall sensors, commutation offsets and multi-turn tracking Tune control loops for high bandwidth, low torque ripple and low acoustic noise, including feedforward, friction and cogging compensation Implement torque and impedance control modes that support safe, compliant interaction with people Build fault detection and protection for overcurrent, overvoltage, undervoltage, overtemperature, stall and sensor failures, with safe torque-off behavior Design motor drive communication with deterministic timing to the central controller Bring up new motor driver boards and support hardware design reviews for gate drivers, current sensing and power stages Test and validate firmware releases on the bench and on full robots, and build tools for automated tuning, logging and regression testing Key Competencies Strong embedded instincts: you write control code that stays correct under real hardware conditions, including ISR timing, ADC sampling alignment, PWM edge cases and DMA conflicts First-principles debugging: you find root causes at the hardware-firmware boundary with a scope, current probe and an understanding of motor physics Safety-first mindset: you treat fault handling, current limits and safe torque-off as core firmware, not an afterthought Clear cross-functional communication: you explain control and firmware constraints to electrical and actuator engineers, and pull in early during hardware design Minimum Requirements: 5+ years of embedded firmware development in C/C++ (7+ for senior roles) Shipped motor control firmware for BLDC or PMSM motors, including FOC and cascaded control loops Solid grasp of motor physics and power electronics: inverters, gate drivers, current sensing, dead time and PWM Experience with encoders and sensor interfaces such as SPI, BiSS-C, SSI or ABZ Hands-on experience with EtherCAT/CAN or another real-time fieldbus Comfort with interrupt-driven, hard

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Source: https://jobsbylevel.com/jobs/staff-firmware-engineer-motor-controls-at-1x-577d2e

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