Senior Autonomy Engineer - State Estimation Lead

Are you passionate about shaping the future of humanity's presence in space? Lunar Outpost, a trailblazer in space robotics, invites you to join our team! Lunar Outpost is dedicated to creating a sustainable presence in space, while also driving positive impacts here on Earth. We are seeking a talented, experienced Senior Autonomy Engineer - State Estimation Lead.

As the lead of our State Estimation Team, you will play a pivotal role in developing cutting-edge autonomous navigation and control systems for our lunar rovers. Working at the intersection of autonomy, robotics, and space exploration, you will be responsible for the architecture, development, and verification of the vehicle state estimation stack, including local state filters, global localization methods, and lunar surface state measurement solutions. This role provides technical leadership for a critical subsystem that underpins mobility, autonomy, safety, and mission operations. Collaborating with cross-disciplinary engineering teams, you'll bring your expertise to solve complex challenges and drive the innovation needed to explore new frontiers in space. 

Key Responsibilities: 

Own the end-to-end state estimation architecture for robotic platforms, spanning local state propagation, global localization, outlier rejection, and external measurement integration 

Lead the design, implementation, and validation of state filters, including extended Kalman filters, factor-graph optimization, and related probabilistic estimators 

Develop and maintain both global and relative localization solutions

Fuse state measurements from onboard and external sources and infer dynamic constraints on state from sources such as terrain features, vehicle health signals

Define estimator interfaces, data products, timing requirements, and covariance conventions for downstream consumers, including planning, control, fault management, and mission operations

Establish estimator performance requirements, observability analyses, consistency checks, and failure detection strategies

Lead offline analysis and field validation of estimation performance across representative operational scenarios

Guide sensor fusion strategies in collaboration with sensor and systems engineering teams, including calibration, latency handling, and fault tolerance

Support anomaly investigation, estimator tuning, and root-cause analysis during integration and field operations

Conduct field tests and simulations to validate and refile algorithms and software systems

Ensure software systems adhere to industry standards for safety, reliability, and performance in space exploration contexts

Mentor junior engineers and promote a culture of technical excellence and innovation within the team 

Stay at the forefront of autonomy and robotics technology, incorporating the latest advancements into our projects

Required Qualifications: 

Experience in research and development of perception and localization in unstructured environments 

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Robotic Engineering, or related field 

A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in developing state estimation systems for robotics, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, or similar domains

Demonstrated expertise with probabilistic state estimation techniques, including EKF, UKF, factor graphs, or smoothing-based methods

Experience with global localization or map-referenced estimation techniques, such as terrain matching, image-based localization, or absolute navigation methods

Strong foundation in estimation theory, uncertainty propagation, observability, and applied filtering 

Expertise in programming languages such as C++, Python, and familiarity with ROS (Robot Operating System) 

Experience leading technical direction or mentoring engineers on complex algorithmic systems 

U.S. Person 

Preferred Qualifications: 

Background in GPS-denied navigation, planetary robotics, or operation in GPS-denied environments 

Experience integrating estimation with control systems, planners, or fault management frameworks

Experience with photoclinometry, or terrain relative navigation

Familiarity with simulation and validation tools for estimation performance analysis

Experience with long-duration autonomy, delayed updates, or intermittent absolute measurements

Graduate degree in robotics, aerospace, applied mathematics, or a related discipline

Demonstrated ability to work in multidisciplinary teams and communicate effectively across different engineering domains
 

Any offer of employment for this position is conditional upon Lunar Outpost receiving the LTVS Phase II contract from NASA. If the contract is not awarded to Lunar Outpost, this offer will be considered null and void, without further obligation to Lunar Outpost.

Lunar Outpost is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate against protected characteristics (gender, age, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, disability, veteran status). We want all employees (including executives and HR) to treat others with respect and professionalism.