Autonomy Engineer

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.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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

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.

Nextpower is an equal opportunity employer.