Staff Software Engineer, Localization

Role overview

The role focuses on advancing autonomous ground operations at active airports by owning significant portions of the localization, mapping, and calibration stack. The position is suited for an experienced engineer who can take deep ownership of specific workstreams, shape technical direction, and partner across perception, planning, and platform teams to move a robotic system from supervised operation toward driverless deployment.

Responsibilities

- Lead one or more core areas of the localization stack, including LiDAR-inertial-GNSS state estimation, 3D mapping and map maintenance, or sensor calibration, and drive each to production reliability on real hardware at active airport sites - Contribute across the full localization and mapping pipeline, from sensor integration and performance tuning through regression testing and deployment to new operating environments - Design and build online validation that monitors localization integrity and cross-sensor consistency during live missions, detects drift, and integrates with the vehicle's safety architecture - Develop diagnostic tooling, health logging, and post-mission analysis capabilities spanning the stack - Shape the regression, validation, and release-gating approach for localization changes deployed to active airports - Deploy, test, and iterate using data captured during real autonomous operations

Requirements

- 8 or more years of experience in robotics or autonomous vehicles, with a track record of owning localization or state-estimation systems through production deployment on real hardware - Deep practical grounding in multi-sensor fusion and state estimation across LiDAR, IMU, GNSS, and cameras - Demonstrated technical leadership, including driving architecture across teams, setting direction, and serving as the escalation point for difficult estimation problems - Strong command of non-linear optimization (such as Ceres, GTSAM, or g2o) and/or filtering approaches such as EKF and UKF, with the judgment to know when each applies - Strong modern C++ (C++17 or newer) and deep working experience with Linux and ROS or ROS 2 - Understanding of how calibration quality propagates through localization and perception, and how localization errors propagate into the safety case - BS or MS in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, or a related field

Nice to have

- MS or PhD with a focus on localization, state estimation, or calibration - Hands-on experience with multi-sensor calibration, including intrinsic, extrinsic, and temporal calibration - Experience with factor graphs, graph-based SLAM, or open-source tools such as GLIM, LIO-SAM, Cartographer, Kalibr, Ceres, or GTSAM - Experience building online or runtime monitoring and defining safety-relevant thresholds within a safety monitoring architecture - Track record of taking an autonomous system toward driverless operation