Autonomy Engineer

Nextpower LLC, USA; Folsom (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision coverage

401(k) participation with company matching

Unlimited paid time off

Discretionary company bonuses

Life and disability protection

Job summary

Nextpower LLC, USA, is seeking an Autonomy Engineer to enhance the autonomy performance of robotic systems. In this role, you'll work on perception, planning, and control to ensure systems operate efficiently in real-world conditions.

With a salary range of $160,000 – $190,000, you'll participate in a dynamic team, collaborate on diverse projects, and contribute to impactful developments in robotics.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in robotics, autonomy, or related fields.
• Demonstrated experience developing software for robotic or autonomous systems in real-world environments.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to debug complex system behavior.

Responsibilities

• Develop and improve autonomy capabilities across perception, planning, and control.
• Get systems working on real robots, not just in simulation.
• Debug and resolve issues observed in real-world operation.
• Collaborate across hardware, integration, and test teams to ensure system-level performance.

Skills

C

C++

Python

Rust

Linux command-line

Git

Docker

ROS2

Problem-solving

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field

Tools

Gazebo

Job description

Company Overview

Nextpower is a global leader in intelligent solar tracker and software solutions, optimizing solar power plant performance worldwide. Within the Robotics and Autonomy team, we build and deploy robotic systems that operate at scale in real solar environments, combining perception, planning, control, embedded compute, and cloud infrastructure to increase inspection capacity, improve safety, and enable scalable operations.

Job Summary

You will serve as an Autonomy Engineer, advancing real‑world autonomy performance across the navigation stack and enabling robots to operate more independently, efficiently, and at greater scale. This systems‑level role spans perception, planning, and control, requiring work directly on robots in field and test environments to ensure reliable performance under real‑world conditions.

Core Responsibilities

• Develop and improve autonomy capabilities across perception, planning, and control.
• Get systems working on real robots, not just in simulation.
• Debug and resolve issues observed in real‑world operation.
• Build and use simulation, log replay, and data pipelines to accelerate iteration.
• Collaborate across hardware, integration, and test teams to ensure system‑level performance.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in robotics, autonomy, or related fields, with demonstrated experience developing software for robotic or autonomous systems in real-world environments (not just simulation).
• Strong proficiency in at least one of the following languages: C, C++, Python, or Rust.
• Strong experience with Linux command‑line environments, Git, and Docker.
• Strong experience with ROS2‑based systems.
• Strong problem‑solving skills and ability to debug complex system behavior.
• Hands‑on experience working with physical robotic systems.
• Coachability and ability to operate effectively within a fast‑moving, collaborative team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing and deploying perception systems such as terrain classification, object detection, recognition, tracking, and semantic understanding of environments.
• Experience with model training, evaluation, deployment, and inference optimization on constrained embedded systems (CUDA, TensorRT, ONNX Runtime).
• Designing and implementing robot control and planning systems, including low‑level path control (e.g., MPC), path planning algorithms (A*, Dijkstra’s algorithm, or similar), and multi‑robot planning or coordination.
• Experience building sensor fusion, filtering, localization, and state estimation algorithms (Kalman Filters, EKF, graph‑based optimization methods).
• Characterizing sensor and motion noise.
• Experience with simulation tools such as Gazebo or similar.
• Using log replay, data pipelines, and performance visualization to debug and improve systems.
• Applying CI/CD, release processes, and test‑driven development in robotics systems.
• Debugging networking, remote systems, or communication stacks in deployed environments.
• Operating and deploying systems in outdoor, field robotics environments under compute, bandwidth, and latency constraints.

Compensation

Salary range: $160,000 – $190,000, based on location and experience.

Benefits

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, and vision coverage; 401(k) participation with company matching; paid holidays; unlimited paid time off; discretionary company bonuses; life and disability protection; and potential stock compensation. Detailed information is available on the company website.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Nextpower is an equal opportunity employer.