Senior Autonomy Software Engineer, Calibration

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 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 Senior Engineer to join our Calibration Localization and Mapping (CLAM) team. Someone with deep expertise in multi-sensor calibration for autonomous systems who can ensure our trucks cameras lidars radars and IMUs are precisely characterized and fused with confidence.

In this role you will:

• Develop and maintain intrinsic and extrinsic calibration algorithms for cameras lidar radar and IMU sensors and set the technical strategy for these systems.
• Build online/self-calibration systems that detect and correct sensor drift or misalignment over the life of the vehicle.
• Characterize sensor uncertainty and noise models to support downstream localization and perception fusion anticipating failure modes before they arise in the field.
• Design and maintain tooling for factory calibration field recalibration and post-maintenance verification.
• Develop and evangelize metrics and automated checks to validate calibration quality and flag degraded sensors.
• Troubleshoot calibration issues found in the field or in simulation driving root-cause fixes and serving as a technical escalation point for complex or ambiguous calibration problems.
• Collaborate closely with Localization Mapping Perception and Hardware teams and guide sensor selection strategy in partnership with Hardware and Sensors teams.
• Mentor other engineers and represent CLAM in cross-functional design reviews.

What youll bring:

• Strong technical background. BS MS or PhD with academic or industry experience in sensor calibration computer vision or robotics.
• Skilled in C with strong software engineering fundamentals and experience building high-reliability deployed applications. Code is your craft.
• Experience with intrinsic and extrinsic calibration techniques (e.g. camera-lidar calibration hand-eye calibration target-based and targetless methods).
• Experience with optimization techniques used in calibration (e.g. bundle adjustment nonlinear least squares factor graphs).
• Solid understanding of sensor uncertainty modeling and how calibration errors propagate into localization and perception.
• Solid understanding of metrics data analysis and scientific evaluation.
• A team player. You take ownership and are interested in the performance of the entire system across engineering disciplines.
• Ability to build and iterate quickly and comfortable defining and building lasting infrastructure components from scratch.
• Hands on. Curious. Flexible. Interested in new domains to expand your horizons.
• Great communicator. Experience writing clear concise design documentation to gather feedback across the team.
• (Staff-level candidates) Demonstrated ability to set technical direction influence without direct authority mentor engineers and align multiple teams around a shared approach.

Bonus points if you have:

• Experience building automated calibration pipelines or in-field self-calibration systems.
• Hands-on experience calibrating sensors on a real vehicle fleet.
• Experience with point cloud registration or multi-modal sensor fusion.

What we offer:

• Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
• Excellent Medical Dental and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente Cigna and MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
• MetLife 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 CA
• Office perks: dog-friendly free catered lunch a fully stocked kitchen and free EV charging
• Long Term Disability Short Term Disability Life Insurance
• Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna Calm through Kaiser One Medical Gympass Spring Health through Cigna Rula (mental health navigation)
• Fidelity 401(k)
• Commuter FSA Dependent Care FSA HSA
• Various incentive programs (referral bonuses patent bonuses etc.)