About Grab and Our Workplace

Grab is Southeast Asia's leading superapp. From getting your favourite meals delivered to helping you manage your finances and getting around town hassle-free, we've got your back with everything. In Grab, purpose gives us joy and habits build excellence, while harnessing the power of Technology and AI to deliver the mission of driving Southeast Asia forward by economically empowering everyone, with heart, hunger, honour, and humility.

The Role at a Glance

Get to Know the Team

Our team develops production-grade robotics and autonomy capabilities for the uniquely complex, unstructured urban environments of Southeast Asia. We advance perception, planning, and control step by step, with safety evidence as the gate for every milestone. We prioritise robust systems, uncompromised quality, and strong in-house technical depth.

We are a senior, hands-on engineering group that values operational excellence, clean interfaces, and reproducible pipelines.

Get to Know the Role

As the Principal Control Engineer, you are the primary owner of the vehicle control stack. You will set the direction, interfaces, and validation bar, and deliver the system that turns planned paths and speed targets into safe, stable, and comfortable steering and acceleration/braking commands under real-world constraints.

This is a hands-on technical role. You will define control architecture, implement advanced control strategies, and ensure production-grade reliability from simulation through on-vehicle deployment. You will work with Planning and Vehicle Integration to guarantee dynamically feasible, robust execution in complex urban environments.

You will report to the Head of Engineering and serve as the technical owner for control systems.

The Critical Tasks You Will Perform

Control Architecture & Ownership

• Architect and own the end-to-end control stack, from following planned paths and speed profiles to producing actuator commands (steering, throttle/torque, brake).
• Design modular, production-grade control software with clear abstractions and fail-safe mechanisms (e.g. command limits, watchdog/timeouts, stale-data checks, graceful degradation and safe stop behaviors).
• Define performance metrics, stability criteria, and release gates for control updates.
• Set standards for control-layer safety mechanisms and verification and contribute test evidence to the Safety/System engineering process.

Algorithm Development & System Hardening

• Develop and deploy advanced control algorithms (e.g., MPC, nonlinear, robust, adaptive) for path/speed tracking and stabilization.
• Model and compensate for vehicle dynamics, actuator limits, delays, and disturbances.
• Tune for stability, safety, and ride comfort in dense, real-world urban conditions.
• Ensure control runs reliably at fixed loop rates and remains robust to latency, jitter, stale inputs, and actuator/sensor dropouts.
• Partner with Simulation/Platform to develop vehicle models, actuator models and simulation environments for control validation, while owning control-relevant model assumptions and validation needs.
• Lead SIL/HIL testing and structured on-vehicle validation, defining what qualifies as 'release-ready' for control changes and enforcing regression gates.
• Resolve cross-boundary software–hardware performance issues using data-driven methods.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Planning to establish control-relevant interface contracts (timing, units, constraints, and feasibility checks) so planned outputs are executable on real vehicles.
• Work with Vehicle Integration on DBW integration boundaries and hardware constraints, including command semantics (angle vs rate, accel vs torque), signal validity, saturation/limits, and fault handling expectations.
• Support Safety and Systems Engineering in meeting relevant safety standards (e.g., ISO 26262, SOTIF).
• Mentor engineers in control design, tuning methodology, and production-quality implementation.

Skills You Need Essential

• Deep experience in control systems for autonomous vehicles or complex robotic platforms.
• Demonstrated record of shipping and operating control software on real vehicles, including debugging, tuning, and improving performance via data-driven iteration.
• Strong expertise in vehicle dynamics and motion control (lateral and longitudinal), including tracking planned paths and speed profiles under constraints.
• Advanced knowledge of MPC, nonlinear, robust, or adaptive control methods, with demonstrated ability to ship reliable controllers under compute, timing, and fault constraints.
• Expert-level C++ (C++17+) for performance-critical control systems and strong Python for analysis, tuning workflows, and validation tooling.
• Hands-on experience with SIL/HIL and on-vehicle validation.
• Strong systems debugging across software and hardware interfaces.
• BS/MS/PhD in Control, Robotics, EE, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent experience.

Preferred

• Experience with drive-by-wire and embedded control integration.
• Familiarity with safety-critical development frameworks.
• Exposure to state estimation–control interaction.
• Experience operating in dense, dynamic urban environments.
• Publications or patents in control or autonomous systems.

Life at Grab

We care about your well-being at Grab, here are some of the global benefits we offer:

• We have your back with Term Life Insurance and comprehensive Medical Insurance.
• With GrabFlex, create a benefits package that suits your needs and aspirations.
• Celebrate moments that matter in life with loved ones through Parental and Birthday leave, and give back to your communities through Love-all-Serve-all (LASA) volunteering leave
• We have a confidential Grabber Assistance Programme to guide and uplift you and your loved ones through life's challenges.
• Balancing personal commitments and life's demands are made easier with our FlexWork arrangements such as differentiated hours

What We Stand For at Grab

We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that enables diverse Grabbers to grow and perform at their best. As an equal opportunity employer, we consider all candidates fairly and equally regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, family commitments, physical and mental impairments or disabilities, and other attributes that make them unique.