Lead Autonomous Localization Engineer

SteerAI; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 300,000 - 500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Benefits package

Job summary

SteerAI is seeking a Lead Robotics Engineer to own and grow our localization strategy across the autonomy stack. You will lead the localization team's technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive hiring — while remaining deeply hands-on with the core localization engine.

This role is broad by design: rather than specializing in one sensor modality, you'll bring depth across LiDAR, GNSS/INS, visual, and sensor-fusion approaches, and know how to choose and combine the right one for the

Qualifications

• Experience with non-linear optimization and Bayesian filtering for autonomous navigation.
• Strong 3D geometry and spatial reasoning, including SE3/Lie groups.
• Extensive map-based localization using HD maps (Lanelet2/OpenDRIVE).
• Expert-level software engineering with ROS 2 and performance-critical design.

Responsibilities

• Lead the localization stack roadmap, setting architecture, testing, and code quality standards.
• Design and implement state estimation pipelines fusing IMU, odometry, GNSS/INS, LiDAR, and vision inputs.
• Develop LiDAR-based localization and place-recognition methods for GNSS-denied environments.
• Implement graph-based and non-linear optimization (Ceres, g2o, GTSAM) for global consistency and fusion.
• Design and implement VIO/visual-inertial localization when camera-based sensing is appropriate.
• Own hiring and technical interviewing for the localization team.
• Collaborate with perception, navigation, and controls teams across the stack.
• Stay current on localization research and pragmatic value of new approaches.

Skills

State Estimation

3D Geometry

Map-Based Localization

Software Engineering

Tools

Ceres

g2o

GTSAM

ROS 2

Modern C++ (17/20)

Python

Job description

SteerAI is seeking a Lead Robotics Engineer to own and grow our localization strategy across the autonomy stack. You will lead the localization team's technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive hiring — while remaining deeply hands-on with the core localization engine.

This role is broad by design: rather than specializing in one sensor modality, you'll bring depth across LiDAR, GNSS/INS, visual, and sensor-fusion approaches, and know how to choose and combine the right one for the