Localization Engineer

Overview

City Detect Localization Engineer — Remote
· Full time

Responsible for ensuring location accuracy across the entire pipeline—from data collection units and vehicle software detections to final customer presentation.

City Detect harnesses AI and computer vision to revolutionize urban management by using sensors to map the physical world and help communities respond to issues and track longitudinal changes. Founded in 2021, we recently raised a Series A and are actively partnering with major municipalities across Texas, California, Florida, and beyond to create cleaner, safer, and more livable cities. We value responsible practices, cutting-edge innovation, and collaborative community partnerships as we scale our platform and shape the future of urban living through technology.

We re seeking a Localization Engineer to lead the development and continuous improvement of our localization module for our data collection units. You ll design and implement various sensor fusion and refinement techniques, leveraging our GPS, cameras, and IMUs built in to our growing national fleet. As a Localization Engineer, you will work to deliver a real-time map of the built-up environment including reliable, sub-meter vehicle localization and object detections.

• Lead development of sensor fusion algorithms and integration with object detection systems to accurately locate the vehicle and objects against municipal parcels, buildings, and infrastructure
• Take initiative to find performance gaps and implement long-term solutions for challenging issues caused by the complex relationship between remotely deployed software and a broad spread of hardware components
• Assess and develop approaches that improve localization and object detection performance (ie: usage records, log data, model efficiency, algorithm improvements) and methods to continuously evaluate the performance of these systems
• Contribute to the remote diagnostic and evaluation tools to determine customer unit performance
• Support and work collaboratively with AI and backend development teams to assess and improve localization and object detection performance

• 5+ years of professional experience in robotics, with a focus on localization or sensor fusion, and a broad understanding across multiple disciplines related to mobile data collection and refinement
• Experience designing and implementing state estimation or SLAM algorithms for real-world, real-time robotics frameworks (ie: ROS) in a production environment
• Strong programming skills in C/C++ and Python
• Comfort in building data-driven improvements from data-sparse remote diagnostics
• Experience with code quality and development processes for production code delivery - especially related to continuous, remote deployments
• Ability to work effectively both independently and collaboratively in a fast-moving team environment

• A masters or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or an applied engineering field
• Experience with AWS IoT or other remote system deployment and reporting mechanisms
• Experience with sparse remote data collection, development, and debugging, especially confidential or government data, by cars, trucks, or other low-contact vehicles
• Experience manipulating and integrating GIS municipality data (roads, parcels, infrastructure, etc) into low-resource systems
• Familiarity with camera calibration, GPS, or mapping ground-truth collection and evaluation

• Eligible for company equity incentive plan
• Fully remote position
• Unlimited PTO
• Health, vision, and dental insurance
• $100 monthly wellness stipend
• Bi-annual team retreat
• Professional development opportunities

Our hiring process is designed to be thoughtful, efficient, and human. Candidates typically move through a short series of interviews over 2–3 weeks, starting with a 30-minute phone screening, followed by one or two technical conversations and a final interview with our CEO.

We focus on cultural alignment, real-world technical understanding, and career goals—not coding puzzles or Leet Code-style tests. You ll hear back within 24 hours after each stage whenever possible. If an offer is extended, the role begins with a 30-day trial period where you ll take ownership of a meaningful project and receive clear, ongoing feedback to ensure mutual fit.

Due to regulatory and operational requirements, we are currently only considering candidates based in the United States.

$155,000 - $185,000 per year