Autonomy: State Estimation & Navigation Lead

Neros Technologies; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 192,000 - 268,000; Full time

Job summary

Neros Technologies in Torrance, CA, is seeking a State Estimation and Navigation Lead to guide the onboard estimation and navigation stack for its autonomous drones. You will lead a small team of engineers while staying hands-on to deliver GPS-denied navigation across multiple platforms and establish robust measurement standards.

The role requires deep expertise in estimation theory, sensor fusion, and real-time embedded computation, with a track record of taking systems from architecture to

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience in state estimation, navigation, sensor fusion, or GNC for robotics, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, or defense systems, including experience leading engineers as a manager or technical lead
• Demonstrated ownership of a state estimation or navigation system taken from architecture through deployment on production hardware, not simulation alone
• Deep expertise in estimation theory and its practical application, including EKF, UKF, error state or invariant filters, and factor graph or sliding window smoothing, along with the observability reasoning behind selecting among them
• Hands on experience fusing IMU, camera, GNSS, and range or altimetry sensing, including calibration, time synchronization, latency compensation, bias modeling, and outlier rejection
• Experience delivering navigation performance in GPS denied or GPS degraded environments
• Strong C++ and Python, with experience implementing real time algorithms under embedded compute, memory, and latency constraints
• A track record of quantitative validation, including defining accuracy, drift, and consistency metrics and building the simulation, dataset replay, hardware in the loop, and flight test workflows that measure them
• Experience debugging estimation failures on real hardware in the field and converting them into reproducible regression tests
• Strong foundations in linear algebra, probability, and numerical optimization
• Nice to Have:Experience with visual inertial odometry or terrain relative navigation delivered as a fielded capability rather than a research result
• Nice to Have:Experience with target state estimation or tracking through clutter and occlusion, including range, bearing rate, and closing velocity
• Nice to Have:Experience building or contributing to small UAS flight stacks such as PX4, ArduPilot, or Betaflight, or to a custom flight control system
• Nice to Have:Experience defining evaluation or performance measurement standards that multiple teams report against
• Nice to Have:Experience scaling an autonomy stack across multiple vehicle platforms as a configuration rather than a fork
• Nice to Have:Prior work in a high tempo startup environment or on a program operating under ITAR or EAR constraints

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap for onboard state estimation and navigation, and the interface this team delivers to guidance and control, including vehicle state, target state, and calibrated uncertainty
• Architect, implement, and field GPS denied and GPS degraded navigation to a bounded and measured accuracy specification, fusing IMU, vision, GNSS, and other onboard sensing on embedded compute
• Lead the development of visual inertial and terrain relative navigation from prototype through fielded capability across multiple aircraft
• Define and enforce the standard for characterizing estimation uncertainty and reporting autonomy reliability, including validation in simulation, dataset replay, hardware in the loop, and flight test
• Hire, manage, and mentor state estimation and navigation engineers, and set the technical bar through design and code review on the estimation path
• Partner with perception, guidance and control, platform software, and hardware teams on sensing, compute, latency, and calibration requirements, and support flight test and field deployment of the estimation stack

Skills

C++

Python

State estimation

Sensor fusion

GNC

Kalman filters

GPS-denied navigation

Embedded compute

Linear algebra

Mathematical optimization

Team leadership

Tools

PX4

ArduPilot

Betaflight

Job description

Neros Technologies in Torrance, CA, is seeking a State Estimation and Navigation Lead to guide the onboard estimation and navigation stack for its autonomous drones. You will lead a small team of engineers while staying hands-on to deliver GPS-denied navigation across multiple platforms and establish robust measurement standards.

The role requires deep expertise in estimation theory, sensor fusion, and real-time embedded computation, with a track record of taking systems from architecture to