Senior Autonomy Software Engineer, Mapping

Kodiak Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2018 and has become a leader in autonomous ground transportation committed to a safer and more efficient future for all. The company has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered technology stack purpose-built for commercial trucking and the public sector. The company delivers freight daily for its customers across the southern United States using its autonomous technology.

In 2024, Kodiak became the first known company to publicly announce delivering a driverless semi-truck to a customer. Kodiak is also leveraging its commercial self-driving software to develop, test and deploy autonomous capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense.

We are looking for a Staff Engineer on our Calibration, Localization and Mapping (CLAM) team — a technical leader with deep expertise in state estimation, inertial navigation, and sensed odometry who can set technical direction across the team and  this role, you will:

Set the technical strategy and architecture for our onboard navigation and pose estimation systems.

Lead the design and development of advanced sensor fusion and pose estimation approaches across IMU, camera, and lidar sensors, anticipating failure modes before they arise in the field.

Drive the direction of visual and lidar odometry algorithms, including evaluating build-vs-adopt tradeoffs for new techniques.

Define and evangelize navigation metrics and evaluation methodology used across the org to assess algorithm and system performance.

Serve as a technical escalation point for complex, ambiguous, or cross-cutting localization problems.

Evaluate sensor performance and optimize sensor selection.

Verify correct sensor calibrations, settings, and uncertainty characterizations.

What you’ll bring:

Strong technical background. BS, MS or PhD with academic or industry experience in building navigation, localization, and odometry systems.

Expert in C++ and strong problem-solving skills. Strong software engineering skills and experience building high-reliability deployed applications . You write well-designed, highly maintainable code. Code is your craft.

Deep experience transforming raw sensor data from GNSS, IMU, wheel speed, etc. into 6-DOF pose using Kalman Filtering, factor graphs, or comparable state estimation techniques — and judgment on when each approach is appropriate.

Experience with computer vision, visual odometry, and/or odometry from point cloudsA history of mentoring engineers and elevating the technical practices of a team.

A team player. You take ownership and work with the team to deliver exceptional results. You are interested in the performance of the entire system across engineering disciplines.

Ability to build and iterate quickly. You enjoy working fast and smart, and you are comfortable in defining and building lasting infrastructure components from scratch.

Hands on.  Curious.  Flexible.  Interested in new domains to expand your horizons and provide a complete system wide solution. Great communicator. You have experience writing clear, concise design documentation to gather feedback from across the team to find the best solution.

What we offer:

Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses

Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and  Met Life (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
Met Life Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies

Our office is centrally located in Mountain View, CAOffice perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging

Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability,…