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Salary: USD 200,000 - 260,000 / annual
Kodiak Robotics is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the Calibration, Localization and Mapping (CLAM) team. The company develops AI-powered autonomous ground transportation technology for commercial trucking and the U.S. Department of Defense, and in 2024 became the first known company to publicly deliver a driverless semi-truck to a customer.
In this role, you will set the technical strategy and architecture for onboard navigation and pose estimation systems. You will lead the design and development of advanced sensor fusion and pose estimation approaches across IMU, camera, and lidar sensors, anticipating failure modes before they arise in the field. You will drive the direction of visual and lidar odometry algorithms, including evaluating build-vs-adopt tradeoffs for new techniques. You will define and evangelize navigation metrics and evaluation methodology used across the organization to assess algorithm and system performance. You will serve as a technical escalation point for complex, ambiguous, or cross-cutting localization problems. Additionally, you will evaluate sensor performance and optimize sensor selection, and verify correct sensor calibrations, settings, and uncertainty characterizations.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role where you will mentor engineers, elevate technical practices, and work cross-functionally to deliver system-wide solutions. You will be responsible for building and iterating quickly on lasting infrastructure components.
**Requirements:**
- BS, MS, or PhD with academic or industry experience building navigation, localization, and odometry systems
- Expert-level proficiency in C++ with strong problem-solving skills
- Strong software engineering skills and experience building high-reliability deployed applications; code quality and maintainability are paramount
- Deep experience transforming raw sensor data from GNSS, IMU, wheel speed, etc. into 6-DOF pose using Kalman Filtering, factor graphs, or comparable state estimation techniques, with judgment on when each approach is appropriate
- Experience with computer vision, visual odometry, and/or odometry from point clouds
- History of mentoring engineers and elevating technical practices of a team
- Team player with ownership mentality and interest in system-wide performance across engineering disciplines
- Ability to build and iterate quickly; comfortable defining and building infrastructure components from scratch
- Hands-on, curious, flexible, and interested in expanding horizons to provide complete system-wide solutions
- Strong communicator with experience writing clear, concise design documentation
