Software Engineer (Controls Algorithms)

Key Skills

Algorithms, Autonomous vehicles, C++, Data Analysis, Model Predictive Control-MPC, Optimization, Software Development

Job Description

Who are we?

Based in Oxford and with offices in Canada and the US, Oxa is an international startup founded in 2014 and scaling up rapidly (300+ Oxbots and growing).

As the global leader in our industry, we’re fuelled by a bold purpose: to make the Earth move better. From passenger shuttles to industrial vehicles, our operating system for Universal Autonomy™ is transforming the way people and goods are transported by enabling any vehicle, in any environment, to operate autonomously — safely, securely and efficiently.

Our technology is capturing investors’ imagination. To date we’ve raised $140 million in our Series C investment round. Accommodating growing demand from new and current shareholders, this funding is driving our expansion in North America and EMEA, and accelerating the deployment of our technology in domains where there is both urgent need and potential to scale.

Your Team

You will join our Controls team, where we design, implement, test and deploy the systems that translates trajectories into commands to be executed on the fleet of Oxa Autonomous Vehicles (AVs).

Your Role

As a Controls Engineer, you will be responsible for the closed-loop trajectory following behaviour of Oxa’s AVs for accurate and safe manoeuvre execution. Working in conjunction with upstream Planning functions, this role will focus on designing, implementing, testing, and deploying control algorithms for diverse platforms that ensure that our AVs exhibit smooth, comfortable and precise behaviours during manoeuvre execution.

In this role, you will:

• Collaborate with your Team Lead and team members to develop, integrate and deploy optimisation-based controllers such as MPC, adaptive control and system identification
• Collaborate with the Planning team to ensure Smooth, Comfortable, Precise manoeuvre execution
• Contribute to the development of high quality functionality that allow Controls to be used as a building block for on-vehicle capabilities.
• Create appropriate metrics and tools to measure and benchmark the performance of controllers deployed on various AV platforms.
• Work with customers, stakeholders, and peers to ensure the right solutions are delivered, and actively contribute to resolving disagreements through constructive dialog.
• Contribute significantly to the engineering lifecycle, including scoping, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance of your team's work.
• Influence technical strategy within the Controls Family, ensuring alignment with your Family Lead and your counterparts in other teams.
• Document and train others on your team's work, focus on improving features, and understand the business and customer value of your team's work.
• Positively impact product quality, customer experience, and maintainability, and take on projects that improve team processes and solutions.
• Contribute to hiring and onboarding at scale by defining role responsibilities and requirements, leading interviews, engaging in recruiting outreach for your team, and mentoring and developing new team members.

Requirements

What you need to succeed:

• A Master’s degree in a related field (Control Eng, Mech Eng, Aerospace, Robotics, Mechatronics) is desired
• A Bachelor’s degree in a related field (Control Eng, Mech Eng, Aerospace, Robotics, Mechatronics) may be acceptable with appropriate experience
• Hands-on experience with optimisation-based controllers (MPC, LQR)
• Knowledge of adaptive control / system identification
• Experience with modelling of dynamic systems (vehicle modelling)
• Experience with C++ algorithm development and deployment

Extra kudos if you have any experience of:

• Experience with offset-free MPC/Disturbance Estimation
• Experience with Model reference adaptive controllers (MRACs) and Model identification adaptive controllers (MIACs)
• Hands-on experience with deploying controllers at scale or commercialisation of controllers
• Experience with data analysis
• Proven agility in fast-changing environments. As a scale-up, we’re constantly evolving so our people need to evolve too for us to succeed together.