Senior Perception & Localization Engineer

Senior Perception & Localization EngineerChicago area (Northbrook, IL) | On site | Up to $180k+ equity | Visa sponsorship and relocation supportThe companyA well funded robotics company building AI powered robots. Their robots are already deployed and doing real work, and the engineering team is growing.The roleYou’ll own how the robots sense and understand the world. That means the sensors on every robot, and the pipeline that turns their data into one trusted picture of the world: where everything really is, what state it’s in, and how sure we are.Real sites are dusty, the light keeps changing, and the real world never quite matches the plans. Your system finds that gap, down to tool tolerance.You’ll be one of three senior technical leads, alongside Task Planning and Robot Learning. The planner and the learned skills both depend on your world model being right.What you’ll doDefine the sensor suite for each robot platform: cameras, lidar, force/torque, tactile, IMU and process sensorsChoose sensor placement for coverage, occlusion and changing lightOwn calibration (intrinsic, extrinsic, hand eye, camera to lidar) and keep it reliable through tool changes and daily useOwn time sync across every sensor, robot state and teleop streamBuild the sensor data pipeline: capture, streaming, compression and logging at rateBuild sensor fusion and localisation, so mobile robots know where they are relative to the structure, not just a mapDesign the world model: every element tied to CAD / BIM models, with its position, uncertainty and statusRegister the plans to the as built, to tool toleranceMonitor sensor health and catch drift before it affects a taskSet perception architecture and mentor engineers, while still writing production code and testing on real robots every weekWhat you’ll bring5+ years building perception, localisation or sensor fusion for robots or autonomous vehicles deployed in the real worldHands on multi sensor calibration and fusion: cameras, lidar, IMU, GNSSState estimation: Kalman filters, factor graphs (GTSAM or similar), SLAMPoint cloud processing and registrationStrong C++ and Python, ROS2, Linux, Docker, CI/CDReal ownership: you built it, not just contributed to itExperience setting technical direction and mentoring engineersNice to haveMS or PhD in Robotics, CS, EE or a related fieldHarsh or outdoor environments: construction, mining, agriculture, rail, subsea, off roadRegistering maps, CAD or BIM models to real world scansForce/torque or tactile sensing for manipulationSensor integration across multiple robot platformsSafety critical or high integrity localisationPlease note: this role is about sensors and state estimation on real hardware. Image classification or deep learning experience alone is not a fit.What’s on offerBase salary up to $200kEquityComprehensive benefitsVisa sponsorship and relocation supportDirect access to robots, sensors and manufacturing environments every week