Control Systems Architect H/F

Les missions du poste

Computing is hungry for electricity. AI and the cloud consume it faster than land-based grids can supply it. On land, data centres are hitting three walls: available power, freshwater and land.

CIRCEO chose to head offshore. Founded in Nantes in 2025, the company designs autonomous energy ships: hulls carrying wind turbines that harvest the open-ocean wind, stronger and steadier than on land, and power on-board servers cooled directly by seawater. No grid connection, no freshwater draw, no land take.

Behind the project are three founders with a proven track record: Fabien Bardinet (former COO of Aldebaran Robotics, former CEO of Balyo, former VP at Airbus), Boris Morinière (CEA, Airbus) and Michel Soubrier (twenty years at Naval Group, from nuclear submarines to shipyard production).

The roadmap is concrete: a demonstrator, a 16-metre trimaran, with construction starting in late 2026 and launch in 2027, then an 80-metre ship, currently in preliminary design, the first of a fleet built for series production.

CIRCEO is now hiring its first team: the people who will commit everything to opening a territory no one has explored yet. Around twenty people, each working directly with the founders, each owning their system end to end.

The culture taking shape fits in a few words: enthusiasm, shared intelligence and a diverse team, drawn from energy, naval, computing and beyond. Stimulating, brilliant people, maybe a little crazy in places, and genuinely electrifying when they come together around the same problem. Here, we ship machines, not slide decks, and the sea has the final say: every assumption will be measured there.

Want to see more? Dive into the project at www.circeo.earth and explore every open position on the Careers page: www.circeo.earth/careers.

To make its first ship think and act, CIRCEO is hiring its:

Control Systems Architect

New position - Permanent contract (CDI), based in Nantes, France

Reporting to Boris Morinière, CTO, you design what makes the ship autonomous: the control architecture that gets the wind turbine, navigation, autopilot, energy management and supervision talking to each other. It is a system without precedent, with strongly coupled variables, developed by a deliberately small team.

1. Architect the control, from the millisecond to the mission

You break the system down into time loops, from the electrical millisecond up to the ship's overall mission. You architect the control models and code: turbine, ship, supervision, routing. State observers and energy management are part of your scope.

2. Make sure the model, the code and the measurement tell the same story

This is the heart of the role: strict consistency between what the model says, what the code does and what the measurement shows. You build and maintain the code generation and continuous integration toolchain, and you are accountable for the quality of every release.

3. Pass on a method

A junior control engineer has already joined the team. You mentor them day to day and you put a real development method in place: the kind that lets a small team deliver a critical system.

Le profil recherché

With more than 10 years of experience on critical physical systems, you come from real-time control: where every calculation has a deadline to meet, and everything gets checked.· Your standards matter more than your sector. Robotics, automotive, aerospace, embedded medical or wind: you have developed real-time systems on real physical objects.· You have already tuned a control loop on real hardware, not only in simulation. This is the one non-negotiable point of the role.· Matlab, Simulink and code generation (Embedded Coder or equivalent) are your working tools. You know how to organise them into a reliable chain, from model to embedded production code.· Coupled variables and negatively damped modes do not scare you. They draw you in.· You build on proven foundations rather than intuition. AI (Claude, Gemini or another) is already one of your tools, to explore options, check your reasoning or multiply your thinking.· English is the team's working language. You speak it fluently, including in fast-paced spoken exchanges.Above all, and this is the founders' first criterion, you are passionate. About robotics, the sea or anything else, it does not matter, as long as it is genuine. Curious in life as in your work, you enjoy stepping outside your scope, and you are happy to pass on what you know.Joining CIRCEO means watching your code steer a real ship on the open sea. It means taking ownership of a critical building block, with the trust that comes with it, and passing your standards on to a team in the making.Do you recognise yourself in this description, and does a negatively damped system look like a playground to you? Then apply under the reference #ControlFreakSalary and benefits· Salary: shaped around your background and what you bring to the founding team. We discuss it openly from our very first conversation.Process and inclusion· 1/ With L'Etincelle RH: a phone call + an interview (supported by tools and tests to understand you more finely)· 2/ With CIRCEO: meetings with at least two of the three founders, Fabien Bardinet (CEO), Boris Morinière (CTO) and Michel Soubrier (COO), plus a technical case studyInterviews can be held in English or French.The position is open now, with a start as soon as possible : control is a critical building block of the ship. If you have a notice period, let's talk, we can work with it.Gender diversity is a deliberate goal at CIRCEO: applications from women engineers are particularly welcome.L'Etincelle RH stands for companies open to diversity and difference. Non-discrimination is second nature to us: you can count on our objectivity.Ref: dx48sku2w2

Bienvenue chez L'Etincelle RH

Computing is hungry for electricity. AI and the cloud consume it faster than land-based grids can supply it. On land, data centres are hitting three walls: available power, freshwater and land.CIRCEO chose to head offshore. Founded in Nantes in 2025, the company designs autonomous energy ships: hulls carrying wind turbines that harvest the open-ocean wind, stronger and steadier than on land, and power on-board servers cooled directly by seawater. No grid connection, no freshwater draw, no land take.Behind the project are three founders with a proven track record: Fabien Bardinet (former COO of Aldebaran Robotics, former CEO of Balyo, former VP at Airbus), Boris Morinière (CEA, Airbus) and Michel Soubrier (twenty years at Naval Group, from nuclear submarines to shipyard production).The roadmap is concrete: a demonstrator, a 16-metre trimaran, with construction starting in late 2026 and launch in 2027, then an 80-metre ship, currently in preliminary design, the first of a fleet built for series production.CIRCEO is now hiring its first team: the people who will commit everything to opening a territory no one has explored yet. Around twenty people, each working directly with the founders, each owning their system end to end.The culture taking shape fits in a few words: enthusiasm, shared intelligence and a diverse team, drawn from energy, naval, computing and beyond. Stimulating, brilliant people, maybe a little crazy in places, and genuinely electrifying when they come together around the same problem. Here, we ship machines, not slide decks, and the sea has the final say: every assumption will be measured there.Want to see more? Dive into the project at www.circeo.earth and explore every open position on the Careers page: www.circeo.earth/careers.To make its first ship think and act, CIRCEO is hiring its:Control Systems ArchitectNew position - Permanent contract (CDI), based in Nantes, France