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# Controls & Embedded Systems Engineer - Prototype Development

- **Company:** American Turbines
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA, United States
- **Salary:** $175,000.0 - $225,000.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Firmware, Safety Critical Systems
- **Published:** September 13, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=260e0e620496e259

## About the Role

Experience with embedded controls and firmware for rotating machinery, engines, or similarly real-time, safety-critical systems. You've taken a system from a blank sheet to actually running, not just simulated or spec'd out.

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.

## Description

The Controls & Embedded Systems Engineer will own getting American Turbines' first turbine to actually run: the embedded controls and firmware that take it 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.

This is not a role where controls comes in after the hardware is built. You will be embedded in the build from early on, shaping component choices around what's controllable and observable.


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