Sensor Systems Engineer, Autonomous Vehicles - Federal

FieldAI's Irvine team is where embodied AI meets real robots, real sensors, and real field deployments. Based in the heart of Southern California’s robotics ecosystem, we build risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems that solve the hardest problems in robotics and unlock the full potential of embodied intelligence. If you want your work to ship, get tested on hardware, and improve through real deployments, Irvine is the place.

We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-only architectures, combining rigorous engineering with learning systems proven in globally deployed solutions that deliver results today and get better every time our robots run in the field.

Field AI is transforming how robots interact with the real world. We are building risk-aware, reliable, and field-ready AI systems that address the most complex challenges in robotics, unlocking the full potential of embodied intelligence. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-based architectures, and are charting a new course, with already-globally-deployed solutions delivering real-world results and rapidly improving models through real-field applications.

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At FieldAI, we build autonomous robotic systems that operate in demanding, real-world environments where tight integration between hardware and software is critical. We’re looking for a Sensor Systems Engineer to support system and component level design, integration, and validation for sensing systems on wheeled robotic platforms across both federal and commercial programs.

As a Perception Systems Engineer on the Federal Team, you will contribute to the design, integration, calibration, and validation of the sensing and compute systems that underpin our autonomy stack. You will work with a diverse array of sensors—LiDARs, depth cameras, IMUs, GPS, and more—ensuring each one delivers accurate, time-synchronized, and spatially consistent data in a range of environments and operating conditions.

You will collaborate closely with the autonomy, compute, electrical, and mechanical teams to build tightly integrated solutions ready for deployment in challenging field environments. Additionally, while your focus will be on sensors you will likely contribute across all hardware domains.

• Sensor Architecture: Work across hardware and software teams to define sensing requirements. Identity, test, and select sensors such as LiDARs, depth cameras, GPS, IMUs, ToF, and other devices.
• Systems Integration: Integrate sensors with electrical (USB, Ethernet, I2C, CAN, GMSL), mechanical (mounts, jigs, isolation), and software (configurations, drivers, ROS nodes) systems. Ensuring power, thermal, and protocol compatibility.
• Spatial Performance: Architect system to meet spatial sampling performance requirements including spatial coverage, range, resolution, and transform accuracy.
• Temporal Performance: Implement and validate synchronization strategies, triggering schemes, timestamp encoding, and end-to-end latency minimization.

• Performance Characterization: Evaluate sensor performance (spatial resolution, temporal drift, EMI noise, sync errors etc.). Test under real-world environmental conditions (vibration, lighting, moisture, temperature).
• Calibration: Design and execute both intrinsic and extrinsic calibrations. Build alignment rigs and calibration boards as needed.
• Optimization: Tune sensor configurations (exposure, gain, filtering, frame rate, etc.) and processing pipeline (filtering etc.) for optimal performance.
• Documentation: Create timing diagrams, sensor maps, coordinate transforms, and maintain all configuration…