Controls & Embedded Systems Engineer
American Turbines · San Francisco ·
- Work mode
- Onsite
- Category
- Embedded
- Salary
- USD 175,000 – 225,000 / year
Own the embedded controls and firmware that take American Turbines' first small modular gas turbine from blank sheet to startup, steady-state operation, and safe shutdown. Day to day is real-time, safety-critical controls work embedded in the hardware build, including sensor selection, valves, P&ID, and test-rig instrumentation.
About American Turbines
The power grid was built for a world that no longer exists. Centralized generation, hundred-mile transmission lines, decade-long permitting cycles. Meanwhile, demand is exploding: AI data centers, industrial electrification, remote operations that need megawatts yesterday and can't wait for utilities to catch up.
American Turbines is designing small modular gas turbines, purpose-built for distributed power generation. Machines designed from a blank sheet to be manufactured at scale, clustered in arrays. Hundreds of units operating in parallel, dynamically matching load like a compute cluster matches demand. We are a seed-stage company backed by the investors behind SpaceX, Boom Supersonic, and Hadrian.
About the Role
The Controls & Embedded Systems Engineer owns getting turbines to run: our own first turbine on the test rig, and the microturbines we install at our first customer site.
On the prototype, that means the embedded controls and firmware that take American Turbines' first turbine from start to steady-state operation, keep it running through every test, and shut it down safely when something goes wrong. This includes owning the P&ID, sensor selection, and valve and plumbing choices, since those decisions are inseparable from what you're controlling, but the job is making the engine work. You will work directly with the test team to get the right sensors on the rig and define the control logic and firmware the engine actually runs on. As testing reveals what the engine needs versus what we assumed, you're the one closing that loop.
On deployment, that means running the microturbines we bring on-site, first as a single unit and then as a fleet, on their existing controls. You get these machines started, keep them running, and relay every bit of turbine data back to HQ. You'll be based in San Francisco, but plan on stretches of weeks on-site during installation and commissioning, troubleshooting control issues in the field, in real time, on hardware we're still getting to know. What you learn there feeds back into how we do controls on our own machine.
This is not a role where controls comes in after the hardware is built, and it's not a desk job. You will be embedded in the build from early on, shaping component choices around what's controllable and observable, and you'll be at the site when the work calls for it.
What We're Looking For
Experience with embedded controls and firmware for rotating machinery, engines, or similarly real-time, safety-critical electromechanical systems. You've taken a system from a blank sheet to actually running, not just simulated or spec'd out. You also get productive fast on unfamiliar hardware, reading schematics and control logic you didn't write and finding your way around them under pressure.
You think in failure modes and control loops as much as you think in code. You know how much of this job is judgment calls under uncertainty rather than clean spec work, and you'd rather be watching the engine run than writing the document that describes it. You're comfortable being the person who has to figure out why something isn't working the way the manual says it should, on a system you didn't design.
Compensation
$175,000 to $225,000 base.
Generous stock package.
Medical, vision, and dental care.
2% matching on 401(k).