Sr. Staff Engineer​/Principal Robotics SLAM and Positioning Lead

Principal Robotics Slam And Positioning Lead

Qualcomm's Advanced Robotics team is building a production-grade, AI-first robotics software platform that scales from AMRs and industrial robots to next-generation humanoids. By pairing heterogeneous compute (CPU/GPU/DSP/NPU) with robust middleware, safety architecture, and cloud integration, we enable customers to deploy intelligent, reliable, and scalable robotic systems across industries.

Localization, mapping, and positioning are foundational to this vision—serving as the backbone for autonomy, navigation, manipulation, fleet operations, and system safety.

As Principal Robotics Slam And Positioning Lead, you will be the technical owner and architect for Qualcomm's core localization and mapping services. You will define, build, and evolve a modular, service-oriented Slam and state estimation stack that operates reliably across diverse robots, sensors, environments, and deployment scales.

This role requires deep hands-on expertise in Slam, sensor fusion, calibration, and system observability, combined with strong architectural judgment and cross-team leadership. You will work closely with robotics middleware, perception, controls, hardware, simulation, and cloud teams to deliver production-ready capabilities that customers can deploy confidently at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Ownership & Architecture
• Own the end-to-end architecture for Qualcomm's Slam and positioning services, defining clear service boundaries, APIs, data contracts, and performance envelopes.
• Drive the transition from algorithm prototypes to robust, production-grade services suitable for long-running robotic deployments.
• Establish design principles for determinism, observability, recoverability, and scalability across on-device and fleet deployments.
• Core Services Development
• Calibration Service
• Online and offline calibration for cameras, IMUs, LiDARs, and other sensors
• Temporal, intrinsic, extrinsic, and drift calibration with validation and health metrics
• State Estimation / Fusion Service
• Real-time multi-sensor fusion (VIO/VSLAM/Lidar-inertial/GNSS where applicable)
• Factor-graph or filter-based estimation with bounded latency and fault tolerance
• Localization Service
• High-accuracy localization against local and global maps
• Support for multi-session, multi-map, and multi-floor environments
• Slam & Map Management Service
• Consistent map generation, update, merging, and lifecycle management
• Interfaces for map versioning, distribution, and cloud-assisted workflows
• Re-localization & Recovery Service
• Robust handling of tracking loss, kidnaps, sensor dropouts, and degraded conditions
• Fast recovery paths with confidence estimation and system signaling
• Diagnostics & Health Monitoring
• Continuous monitoring of localization quality, drift, observability, and sensor health
• Exposed metrics, logs, and alerts for fleet-scale operations and debugging
• Cross-Functional Leadership
• Partner with robotics middleware, controls, perception, and hardware teams to ensure seamless integration with navigation, planning, and manipulation stacks.
• Collaborate with simulation and validation teams to define regression suites, KPIs, and benchmarking methodologies.
• Influence product roadmaps by translating customer requirements and field learnings into architectural decisions.
• Quality, Performance & Delivery
• Establish Slam KPIs for accuracy, robustness, latency, and recovery behavior across platforms.
• Drive CI/CD practices, test automation, and release readiness criteria for localization services.
• Optimize algorithms and pipelines for Qualcomm SoCs using heterogeneous compute efficiently.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 6+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 5+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 4+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience.
  
  * Works in the lab, can use hazardous chemicals (e.g., glue, machinery).

Preferred Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience developing Slam, localization, or state estimation systems for real-world robotic or autonomous platforms.
• Strong proficiency in C++ with production-grade software engineering practices.
• Deep understanding of multi-sensor fusion, calibration, and probabilistic estimation.
• Experience delivering systems that run continuously on real robots, not just in research prototypes.
• Experience with service-oriented or middleware-centric robotics architectures (e.g., ROS2/DDS-based systems).
• Familiarity with map lifecycle management, fleet-scale localization, or cloud-assisted robotics workflows.
• Background in diagnostics, observability, or health monitoring for safety-critical systems.
• Experience optimizing robotics workloads on embedded or heterogeneous compute platforms.
• Track record of technical…