Senior Software Engineer - Calibration, Localization & Mapping

Cosmic Robotics; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Isaac Sim simulations

TensorRT optimization

Edge deployment experience

Job summary

Cosmic Robotics is hiring a Senior Software Engineer for Calibration, Localization, and Mapping to lead the development of high-performance state estimation algorithms for a mobile manipulation robot. You will fuse lidar, IMU, vision, and proprioception data to estimate ego-motion and track the robot within its environment.

You will own software across stacks, balancing performance and reliability, and you will travel to customer sites for testing and deployment as needed.

Qualifications

• PhD or Master’s degree in Robotics, CS, EE, or related field.
• 4+ years of applied research in robotics or related field.
• 5+ years of professional engineering experience.
• Experience leading technical projects or small teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and integrate high-throughput, low-latency state estimation and mapping algorithms.
• Build simulation-based and on-robot evaluation.
• Calibration of intrinsics/extrinsics and hand-eye calibration workflows.
• Translate requirements into technical work packages and execution plans.
• Collaborate with controls, platform, and hardware engineers for system-level success.
• Maintain code quality via reviews, tests, and documentation.
• Provide technical direction and engineering standards.

Skills

C++17+

Python

CUDA

3D geometry

Linear algebra

State estimation

Education

PhD or Master’s degree

Tools

Isaac Sim

TensorRT

Job description

Senior Software Engineer - Calibration Localization and Mapping

Location: San Francisco, CA (full time, in-person)

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Our mission is to accelerate the construction of critical infrastructure on Earth while pioneering technologies to enable humanity to build beyond Earth. Starting with the Cosmic-1a system that installs solar panels 10x faster than today’s methods, our goal is to help transition the world to a clean energy future and laying the groundwork for the future of autonomous construction.

THE ROLE

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer in Calibration, Localization, and Mapping to lead the design, development, and implementation of performant and scalable state estimation algorithms that enhance the capabilities of our mobile manipulation robot.

In this role, you will take technical ownership of software that fuses data from lidar, inertial sensors, vision, and proprioception to estimate the robot’s ego-motion in its operating environment. You will work across the stack, balancing algorithmic performance, system constraints, and real-world reliability to deliver production-ready perception capabilities.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design, develop, and integrate robust high-throughput low-latency state estimation, pose estimation, mapping, and reconstruction algorithms for real-world robotic systems
• Build simulation-based and on-robot evaluation
• Build and maintain algorithms and workflows for intrinsics and extrinsics sensor calibration as well as hand-eye calibration
• Translate business and operational requirements into well-scoped technical work packages and execution plans
• Collaborate cross-functionally with controls, platform, and hardware engineers to ensure system-level success
• Maintain and elevate code quality through code reviews, automated testing, and documentation
• Contribute to technical direction and engineering standards through strong leadership and adherence to best practices
• Travel to customer projects for on-site testing and deployment of robotic equipment in the field

REQUIREMENTS

• PhD or Master’s degree and 4+ years of applied research experience in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or other related field
• 5+ years of professional engineering experience
• Experience leading technical projects or small teams, including setting technical direction, coordinating execution, and mentoring other engineers
• Fluency in modern C++ (C++17 or later), Python, and CUDA
• Strong mathematical skills, including deep understanding of 3D geometry, probability, and linear algebra
• Deep expertise in state estimation as on-manifold nonlinear least-squares, including SO(3)/SE(3) parameterizations, marginalization, and filter- and optimization-based techniques
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Thrives in ambiguity and incomplete information

BONUS

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Hands-on experience delivering production-grade ML models in latency-sensitive, edge-deployed systems
• Using foundation models and simulation tools like Isaac Sim to accelerate data collection and model iteration
• Optimizing or compressing models using tools such as TensorRT
• Managing model lifecycles, including versioning, evaluation, and deployment
• Experience with 3D scene representations such as TRIPS, Gaussian Splatting, TSDF, or vector maps