Onboard HD-Map & Real-Time State Estimation Engineer

Decisive Point; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Applied Intuition in Sunnyvale, CA seeks a senior software engineer to own the onboard live-map estimator end to end, fusing HD map priors with live perception for a real-time, trustable world estimate used across vehicle programs. You will define interfaces and steer architecture with users to ensure robustness in safety-critical contexts.

The role requires strong C++ expertise, experience with state estimation, and building evaluation pipelines.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building production software with at least one shipped estimation core.
• State estimation fundamentals proven in production: factor graphs or filtering, data association, uncertainty propagation.
• Experience fusing map data, perception, and sensors into a single world estimate with error characterization.
• Strong modern C++ and real-time embedded compute.
• Rigorous evaluation pipelines to hold a shipped operating point and prevent regressions.
• Judgment about uncertainty: differentiate graceful vs catastrophic errors.
• Experience defining a system and its interfaces and negotiating contracts with consumer teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the onboard live-map estimator end to end: fuse map priors with live perception into a single real-time world estimate.
• Build onboard map change detection and define when the planner should trust or distrust the map.
• Define map trust contracts the planner uses across vehicle programs.
• Build evaluation backbone, ground-truth and metrics pipelines, and regression testing.
• Ship estimation code in modern C++ that meets real-time budgets on embedded compute.
• Extend loop offboard: aggregate divergences across fleet drive logs into map freshness and correction pipelines.

Skills

production software

state estimation fundamentals

fusing heterogeneous sources

modern C++

evaluation practices

uncertainty judgment

systems/interfaces design

Education

MS/PhD in state estimation or SLAM

Tools

GTSAM

Job description

Applied Intuition in Sunnyvale, CA seeks a senior software engineer to own the onboard live-map estimator end to end, fusing HD map priors with live perception for a real-time, trustable world estimate used across vehicle programs. You will define interfaces and steer architecture with users to ensure robustness in safety-critical contexts.

The role requires strong C++ expertise, experience with state estimation, and building evaluation pipelines.