Sr. Staff Software Engineer, Pose, Localization & Calibration, Autonomy

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract. 

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.

Our Pose Team is a diverse group of algorithm developers / software engineers focused on delivering mapping, localization, and calibration solutions hosted on the vehicle and in the Cloud. Pose is a core capability of the autonomy stack delivering products to Perception, Prediction, Planning, Control, and others. As a Sr. Software Engineer on the Pose team, you will work on a wide variety of localization and calibration problems including real-time algorithm development on the vehicle.

• Technical leadership: Define, review, and refactor the architecture, algorithms, and frameworks for solving pose, calibration, and SLAM problems. The problems we work on involve processing and fusing input data from multiple sensors including GNSS, IMU, wheel / radar / visual / lidar odometry to produce state-of-the-art global and relative localization systems. We also work on the calibration of sensors going into these algorithms.
• Implementation leadership: Implement these algorithms and frameworks in C++. Mentor junior engineers involved in the implementation, and help drive our standards for high-quality, high-performance, scalable autonomy software.
• Integrating these algorithms into our autonomous vehicle architecture, including migrating these algorithms to real-time embedded systems, and integrity monitoring.
• Evaluation: help define and develop pipelines to evaluate and iterate on our algorithms at scale.
• Our team is responsible for interfacing directly with suppliers, interfacing with our software, hardware, and vehicle design teams, developing safety-critical localization algorithms for any environment.

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Aerospace, Electrical, or Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science or a related field.
• 7+ years of robotics, AV (Autonomous Vehicle), or other real-time, safety-critical experience.
• Research and development experience in one or more of the following areas:
  • Stochastic estimation/state estimation/Kalman filtering
  • SLAM / Factor Graphs
  • Sensor fusion
  • Sensor calibration
  • Autonomous Vehicles/ADAS
• Strong C/C++ programming skills and experience
• Ability to work in a fast-paced development environment
• Good team player with great communication skills
• Passionately motivated to take ideas from R&D phase to a product

Preferred Qualifications

• Sensor fusion / SLAM with IMU and/or Odometry
• Non-linear optimization, batch estimation, factor graphs, ground truth algorithms
• Prototyping real-time applications
• Adapting algorithms for real world use cases, considering corner cases, using imperfect data
• Embedded software development and optimization experience
• Software development for safety critical systems (ISO 26262)
• Experience with IMU, camera, LiDAR, radar, computer vision

The salary range for this role is $265,000-331,300 for San Francisco Bay Area based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian’s 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com .

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at View email address on us.fitly.work .

Candidate Data Privacy and Technology

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions. 

How We Use AI in Our Hiring Process: To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Rivian uses iCIMS Talent Cloud Artificial Intelligence (TCAI) and AI-enabled tools to assist with screening, reviewing, organizing and highlighting profiles and applications that match the key requirements for each role.

AI does not make hiring decisions: Qualified candidate applications are reviewed by a member of our team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use AI to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment. We are committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.

Participation in AI profile matching is entirely voluntary. If you prefer that your profile not be used in this process, you can opt out at any time. Opting out means your profile will be excluded from automated matching and will not be surfaced for additional roles through this system. Your current application remains active and will not be affected in any way.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.