(Senior) Software Engineer, Robot control (f/m/d)

ABOUT TACTILIA

At TACTILIA, we are building the industry-ready robotic hand that closes one of the biggest gaps in Physical AI. Spun out of SCHUNK, the global market leader in gripping technology, we combine a decade of robotic-hand expertise and real industrial access with the speed and ambition of a deep-tech startup.

This isn't a research project waiting for its first customer. We already have a product, customers are ready to use it, and we are launching now. Your work will directly shape the electronics, actuators, and embedded systems that make that possible.

You will join at the moment when the hard engineering questions become real product decisions: how do we make a highly capable robotic hand reliable, manufacturable, serviceable, and simple enough to deploy on a real shop floor?

THE ROLE

As a (Senior) Software Engineer, Robot Control at TACTILIA Robotics, you will help design and build the software that turns our robotic hardware into a reliable, scalable product.

You will work across embedded, control, and application software, taking ownership of complex technical problems and helping shape the architecture as the platform evolves. You will work closely with the CTO and engineering team, with the autonomy to make important technical decisions and see them through to working systems.

This is a hands-on role. You will move between architecture, implementation, and the lab, solving the challenges that arise when software meets real hardware

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

• Set the architecture. Embedded, control, and application layers — modular and reusable across product variants, not a one-off for a single prototype.
• Write the control loops that can't miss a beat. Deterministic firmware on the embedded target: hardware abstraction, sensor/actuator integration, fault handling, hard real-time constraints. No room for "usually works."
• Turn commands into grasps. Position, torque, force impedance and admittance control, coordinated multi-finger motion, and handle all different states to make the grasp stable and reliable
• Build the simulation before hardware pays the price Simulation models for control development, regression testing, and sim-to-real validation — most iteration should happen before anyone touches a real hand.
• Ship SDKs people actually want to integrate. ROS 2, fieldbuses, and customer-facing interfaces — documented and version-stable, not tribal knowledge.
• Make the sensor data mean something. Build the pipeline for tactile, position, and force data; build models for slip detection and contact-state estimation; turn field telemetry into the next product iteration.
• Get ahead of the Cyber Resilience Act. Security by design, SBOM, vulnerability handling, a real update path — well before the December 2027 deadline, including the technical documentation for conformity assessment.
• Build tooling like it's product, not plumbing. CI/CD, automated and simulation-based regression tests, logging and diagnostics you'd actually want to debug with at 2am.
• Work across the whole team. Tight loop with Electronics, Mechanics, and Application —spec input, customer integration support, the works.

WHAT YOU BRING:

• A degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, Robotics, or a related field.
• 5–10 years building embedded, robotics, or control software, ideally including at least one product that reached series production or product maturity
• Strong modern C++ and Python with a deep understanding of real-time behaviour, concurrency, memory and resource constraints
• Solid hands-on experience with robot control: closed-loop control, state estimation, filtering, motion coordination, force/impedance control, or related areas.
• You have architected software for a product, not a prototype someone else productionized later
• Simulation-based development (Isaac Sim, Gazebo, MuJoCo, or similar)
• Comfortable with Linux, Git, CI/CD, automated testing
• A strong hardware mindset: you enjoy bringing up systems, debugging on real robots, and getting to the bottom of problems with a scope, logic analyzer, debugger, or whatever tool gets the job done
• Fluent English; German is a plus, not a requirement

BONUS:

• Dexterous manipulation, grasp planning, or robotic hands
• Tactile sensing and contact-rich manipulation

The next chapter of robotics won't be built in a lab. It will be built by people who care about what happens when technology meets the real world.

At TACTILIA, you'll work on one of the hardest open problems in robotics: giving machines the dexterity, reliability and robustness to interact with the physical world at industrial scale.

The technology is taking shape, the team is being built, and the standards around robotic hands and their skills are still open. That means your decisions will have a lasting impact — not just on a product, but on what comes next for Physical AI.

Build the hand. Define the standard. Shape what comes next.

If you're excited by the challenge of building robotic hands that works reliably in the real world, we'd love to hear from you.