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Niantic Spatial is building the future of physical AI, powered by a proprietary database of over 30 billion posed images. The company's groundbreaking mapping technology enables spatial intelligence that helps humans and machines understand, represent, navigate, and engage with the real environment.
As a Senior Computer Vision Engineer on the Applied Algorithms team, you will own significant parts of the Localization technology stack. You will be responsible for building the Map representing a living geospatial world model and the centimeter-level accuracy Visual Positioning System (VPS) that allows people and robots to explore the real world. This role bridges the gap between R&D and production, turning complex geospatial data into a persistent sense of space and enabling the next generation of spatial AI.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design, develop, and maintain production-grade computer vision systems powering the VPS and 3D mapping pipelines
- Refine and scale algorithms for the VPS system, including Structure from Motion (SfM) and Feed Forward models, optimizing feature and descriptor extraction for best accuracy and recall
- Move algorithms from research concepts to hardened production code that scales globally
- Optimize complex ML and CV code for maximum efficiency in cloud and mobile environments, ensuring low latency and high-performance execution on GPU/CPU
- Create and own tools and frameworks to evaluate spatial grounding and 3D map quality against ground-truth data
- Lead technical design reviews, mentor junior engineers, and serve as a team anchor for resolving complex technical disagreements within the mapping stack
- Collaborate with Product, Research, and Operations teams to translate state-of-the-art computer vision solutions into user experiences
Requirements:
- BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Computer Vision, or related technical field (or equivalent professional experience)
- 5+ years of experience developing and shipping algorithms for image processing, computer vision, or 3D reconstruction
- Expert-level proficiency in Python and/or C++
- Proven track record designing solutions for Structure from Motion (SfM), VPS, or 3D mapping
- Deep experience with Deep Learning frameworks (PyTorch or JAX) and version control (Git)
- Required in-office 3 days per week
Plus if you have:
- Experience planning and leading technical projects from inception to production
- Significant contributions to open-source CV libraries (OpenCV, COLMAP, etc.)
- Experience with CUDA or shader programming for performance optimization
