Lead Robotics Software Engineer, Localization
Hybrid (San Francisco, CA)$0 - $300kFull-timePosted 2w ago
About the role
Localization-focused robotics software engineer role at Theseus, building visual-inertial localization to replace GPS for drones. Role involves leading localization work, developing VISLAM/VIO components, and shipping features weekly for field deployments.
Responsibilities
- Work on the visual-inertial odometry, the map matcher, and the filter that fuses them, so that Cyclops holds an accurate position in daylight, at night, over featureless terrain, and on IR cameras.
- Build features that increase availability and reduce operator setup, such as faster initialization, recovery after the estimate has been lost, better handling of poor calibration, and honest uncertainty reporting so the flight controller knows when to trust Cyclops.
- Take problems that arrive as flight logs from customer deployments, reproduce them in replay, form a hypothesis about why the estimate diverged, fix it, and prove the fix across our library of recorded flights before it ships, coordinating with forward deployed engineering so it reaches the customer who reported it.
- Prototype next-generation algorithms aimed at order-of-magnitude gains in accuracy, robustness, and availability, tested against the same flight library as everything else, adopting from the literature what survives contact with real data.
- Ship regularly. New features and fixes ship at a weekly cadence, and we shoot to ship new models within days / weeks.
Qualifications
- 3+ years of experience (Mid level) or 5+ years (Senior) building and deploying state estimation, SLAM, or visual-inertial odometry systems that shipped in a product or were validated in field testing.
- Depth in the estimation fundamentals. You can derive an EKF or a factor graph on a whiteboard, reason about frames and rotations on SO(3) and SE(3), explain IMU preintegration, observability, and covariance behavior with sensor dropout.
- Working grasp of camera models including fisheye and thermal, calibration, epipolar geometry, feature tracking, and bundle adjustment.
- Experience with at least one modern estimation toolchain such as GTSAM, Ceres, or an open VIO stack like OpenVINS, ORB-SLAM, or VINS, and ability to modify it.
- Production C++ in a Linux environment. Product runs on ARM edge compute; consider latency, memory, and cost of changes on small processors.
Skills
Required:Visual-inertial odometry / SLAM / state estimationC++Linux
Nice to have:Python
Benefits
- equity compensation
- medical, dental and vision insurance
- paid time off
- and more
Last updated Oct 7, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
About Theseus
GPS Denied Navigation for Drones
We're building a Micro Visual Positioning System (VPS) that can be retrofit onto any drone that simulates a GPS. Our VPS uses cameras and an accelerometer/gyroscope as well as reference satellite imagery for positioning. The system is entirely self contained, can't be jammed and has no RF signature.
drones
More open roles at Theseus
- Forward Deployed Software Engineer6mo agoHybrid (San Francisco) · Engineering