Software Engineer - LiDAR & SLAM

About Freefly and the Role

Freefly Systems builds professional-grade drones, payloads, and power products such as Astro, Alta X, SL8 smart batteries, the Pilot Pro controller, and, your new product focus, Flux Lidar systems. We need a hands-on software engineer who can take this world class product and make it better. Improve workflows, speed processing times, develop new features, and build a system operators truly love.

Top Questions You’ll Answer

• How far away can we resolve powerlines?
• What is necessary to map the ground below a tree canopy?
• How do you deal with standing water in scans?
• What happens if you must initialize and takeoff from a moving boat?
• What is the best way to eliminate depth noise?
• What is the optimal flight path for highest coverage per time?
• How do you automatically calibrate camera boresight from a scan file only?
• How do you simplify coordinate system workflow for a user like NAD83 and WGS84, etc?
• Are vibration isolators helpful or detrimental to scan quality?
• Lidar on a gimbal, pros? cons?
• What's the smallest feature we should expect to colorize?
• How much will a better IMU help scan quality?
• How can we automate the pre shipping calibration, what are the key things to consider?
• How good can we get pre slam?
• Post slam?
• What’s the best RTK / PPK strategy?
• How do we make it faster?
• What’s the ideal beginner workflow, what about expert?
• What’s your ideal pipeline from capture to decision?
• Where can we differentiate vs competitors?

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hardware development experience that solved real problems
• A real understanding of lidar, the math behind it, and the sensors around it
• Hands-on SLAM or mapping work
• An eye for workflow and interface
• Comfort with AI coding tools, plus the judgment to know when not to trust them
• The ability to explain what you built and why you made the trade-offs you did

We care more about how fast you learn than how long your resume is. If you have adjacent experience, but not the exact qualification, apply anyway.

Why Freefly? 

Efficient

The first, again and again! Check out our innovation timeline here. 

Transparent

Long term sustainable thinking. We are building Freefly to be an Evergreen company, a long term hub of innovation. Transparency and building from first principles are key. Good ideas win here!

Innovative

We see the world differently. We combine technologies in novel ways to drive incredible user value (and smiles!)

Why you should join

• World class team that has out innovated marketplace for > 15 years
• Launch real products to real customers fast!
• Freedom to create and grow professionally
• Competitive compensation plus 20% profit sharing
• Generous benefits including medical, dental, vision
• Access to prototyping shop and resources

Compensation

• Salary Range: $120,000 - $170,000/yr depending on experience.
• Profit Sharing, Medical, Dental, Vision Benefits, Paid Time Off (PTO) available.

To Apply

Please apply here ( or submit your answers to these questions, resume, portfolio (we LOVE portfolios FYI), and a cover letter to View email address on click.appcast.io. Don’t forget to take a minute and explain why you’d be a great fit for this role here at Freefly Systems!