Robotics Perception and Navigation Engineer

Location: Los Angeles, CA or Louisville, KY

About the work

Develop perception and localization capabilities for robots operating in changing environments. Connect detections, tracks, position estimates and system-health information to shared mission awareness, keeping state estimation, route planning and vehicle control responsibilities clear.

What you will do

• Build and evaluate object detection, tracking, visual perception and sensor-fusion components using repeatable datasets and quantitative metrics.
• Define coordinate frames, calibration procedures, timestamps and interfaces for perception and localization outputs.
• Develop navigation-related interfaces that distinguish estimated state, planned routes and low-level vehicle control.
• Evaluate behavior under sensor degradation, uncertain observations and constrained communications in simulation and approved hardware trials.
• Work with AstraSense/AQFM interfaces so health, usable capability and uncertainty can inform planning or replanning within defined authority.
• Support shared observations and multi-robot integration with explicit data formats, confidence measures and handling of stale or missing data.
• Maintain experiment logs, known failure cases, regression tests and clear distinctions between simulated and physical results.

What you bring

• Practical computer vision, robotics or state-estimation experience with Python or C++.
• Ability to work with sensor data, coordinate frames, calibration and quantitative evaluation.
• Experience with reproducible experiments and safe, documented robot testing.

Useful additional experience

ROS 2, Gazebo, visual odometry, SLAM, depth cameras, LiDAR, resource-constrained inference or multi-robot data exchange.

First 90 days: scope to agree

Agree a scoped first-90-day objective: a repeatable perception or localization demonstration with documented test conditions, accuracy measures, degraded-sensor cases, known failures and integration interfaces. Hardware trials depend on approved equipment and test procedures.

About AstraQua

AstraQua is developing a modular autonomy architecture with AQFM as its shared intelligence foundation. Specialized agents contribute perception, reasoning, health and coordination. AstraSense is the health-intelligence agent, with electrified aviation as an initial research application; it connects condition and remaining capability with mission decisions. Our approach to safe AI emphasizes defined operating boundaries, deterministic safety controls, operator authority and behavior designed for verification and validation.

How to apply

Email your resume, job title and preferred location (Los Angeles, CA or Louisville, KY) to careers@astraqua.com. Include a nonconfidential project example.