Senior Localization Engineer

Join Our Team

At Onward Robotics, we are a bold, gritty, and purposeful team with an ambitious mission to revolutionize fulfillment. Our team is driven by a client-first mentality: we aim to solve hard problems and fuel our clients growth with innovation. We are seeking talented individuals who will have a huge impact on both our business and our team. Join us on our mission as we move fast, think big, and have fun!

About Us

Onward Robotics delivers innovative automation technology that coordinates humans and robots as a cohesive system to revolutionize fulfillment. Our Meet Me solution combines proprietary software with person-to-goods mobile robots to increase efficiency in warehousing, distribution, and e-commerce operations. Onward Robotics provides the boost in productivity, flexibility, and speed that companies need to remain competitive and grow. Learn more at onwardrobotics.com.

Job Summary

As a Senior Localization Engineer in our Robot Software Department, you will work on algorithms and systems used for mapping and localization. An ideal candidate has experience resolving difficult problems encountered in localization applications which can cause uncertainty and mis-localization.

As a core team member, you will be responsible for taking the lead on assigned sub-systems, algorithms, and tasks following them from requirements generation through testing and field deployment.

Duties and Responsibilities:

- Algorithm Design: Design, develop, and implement robust and reliable algorithms for robotic systems, with a strong focus on localization, mapping, and state estimation. This includes exploring novel approaches and optimizing existing ones for performance and accuracy in diverse environments.

- Testing, Specification, and Integration: Lead the comprehensive testing, detailed specification, and seamless integration of localization solutions into our robotics platforms. This involves defining test plans, analyzing results, and collaborating closely with hardware and software teams to ensure optimal system performance.

- Data Fusion and Scene Analysis Pipelines: Work extensively with complex data fusion and scene analysis pipelines, integrating sensor data from various modalities (e.g., LiDAR, cameras, IMUs) to build comprehensive environmental models and enhance robotic perception and navigation capabilities.

- Adhere to software development best practices: peer reviews, testing, version control, bug tracking, and integrated documentation.

Core Competencies:

- Ability to be flexible and adaptable in a startup environment

- Good team player with great communication skills

Typical Day:

As a Senior Localization Engineer, no two days look exactly the same—but heres what you can expect most days:

- Participate in daily stand-ups to align on priorities, blockers, and progress with the team.

- Design and code localization algorithms, refining SLAM pipelines, improving state estimation, and optimizing multi-sensor fusion for accuracy and reliability.

- Collaborate with cross-functional teams (mechanical, electrical, and design engineers) to test localization systems on real robots, collecting sensor data and iterating quickly on solutions.

- Take ownership of assigned features or subsystems, gathering requirements, reviewing designs, and pushing updates through development, testing, and deployment.

- Review code from peers, contribute to technical discussions, and champion best practices to ensure high-quality, maintainable software.

- Troubleshoot issues uncovered during robot testing, from localization drift to real-time optimization challenges, working hands-on with hardware as needed.

- Mentor junior engineers, offering guidance on design choices, coding practices, and debugging approaches.

- Document work, update the team, and plan next steps to maintain team alignment and project momentum.

This role offers the opportunity to balance deep technical work with leadership, collaboration, and hands-on robot testing—making every day engaging and impactful.

Qualifications

Required Skills:

- Hands-on experience in SLAM, sensor fusion, localization, and mapping with a proven track record of deploying algorithms in real-world applications.

- C/C++ programming experience

- Proficiency with ROS2 (Robot Operating System 2), including node/package development, deployment, and integration on production robots

- Experience with software configuration management systems (git, SVM, etc.)

- Requirements-driven development

- Results-driven engineering approach, owning algorithms end-to-end from utilization and deployment through structured testing and continuous improvement

Minimum Experience Requirements:

- 5+ years of Localization experience

- Experience with geometry-based Computer Vision approaches such as Structure from Motion, Stereo Vision, SLAM, Visual Odometry

- Experience with point cloud-based detection such as free space detection and obstacle detection

- Experience developing and debugging with a modern Linux platform

- Experience with libraries like Ceres, g2o, GTSAM, Cartographer, and algorithms such as EKF/KF

- Industrial experience, including deployment and support of robotic/localization systems in warehouse, distribution center, or manufacturing environments

Preferred Experience Requirements:

- Extend the capabilities of our SLAM software in the areas multi-robot mapping, visual SLAM, semi-supervised exploration, and life-long mapping.

- Improve localization performance in a variety of dynamic, complex and rapidly-evolving warehouse environments

- Proficiency in C++ with extensive experience designing and optimizing complex software systems; familiarity with Python is a plus.

- 3+ years of experience with GPU programming, such as CUDA or OpenCL

- Familiarity with real-time systems and hardware integration

- Prototyping real-time applications on embedded hardware

- Experience working with autonomous robots

- Experience with commercial software deployment and support

- Algorithm lifecycle development from requirements through QA and field release

Minimum Education Requirements:

- Bachelors Degree in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or Computer Science

Preferred Education Requirements:

- Masters Degree in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or Computer Science