Kodiak Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2018 and has become a leader in autonomous ground transportation committed to a safer and more efficient future for all. The company has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered technology stack purpose-built for commercial trucking and the public sector. The company delivers freight daily for its customers across the southern United States using its autonomous technology. In 2024, Kodiak became the first known company to publicly announce delivering a driverless semi-truck to a customer. Kodiak is also leveraging its commercial self-driving software to develop, test and deploy autonomous capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense.
We are looking for a Staff Engineer on our Calibration, Localization and Mapping (CLAM) team — a technical leader with deep expertise in state estimation, inertial navigation, and sensed odometry who can set technical direction across the team and organization.
In this role, you will:
- Set the technical strategy and architecture for our onboard navigation and pose estimation systems.
- Lead the design and development of advanced sensor fusion and pose estimation approaches across IMU, camera, and lidar sensors, anticipating failure modes before they arise in the field.
- Drive the direction of visual and lidar odometry algorithms, including evaluating build-vs-adopt tradeoffs for new techniques.
- Define and evangelize navigation metrics and evaluation methodology used across the org to assess algorithm and system performance.
- Serve as a technical escalation point for complex, ambiguous, or cross-cutting localization problems.
- Evaluate sensor performance and optimize sensor selection.
- Verify correct sensor calibrations, settings, and uncertainty characterizations.
What you’ll bring:
- Strong technical background. BS, MS or PhD with academic or industry experience in building navigation, localization, and odometry systems.
- Expert in C++ and strong problem-solving skills.
- Strong software engineering skills and experience building high-reliability deployed applications . You write well-designed, highly maintainable code. Code is your craft.
- Deep experience transforming raw sensor data from GNSS, IMU, wheel speed, etc. into 6-DOF pose using Kalman Filtering, factor graphs, or comparable state estimation techniques — and judgment on when each approach is appropriate.
- Experience with computer vision, visual odometry, and/or odometry from point clouds
- A history of mentoring engineers and elevating the technical practices of a team.
- A team player. You take ownership and work with the team to deliver exceptional results. You are interested in the performance of the entire system across engineering disciplines.
- Ability to build and iterate quickly. You enjoy working fast and smart, and you are comfortable in defining and building lasting infrastructure components from scratch.
- Hands on. Curious. Flexible. Interested in new domains to expand your horizons and provide a complete system wide solution.
- Great communicator. You have experience writing clear, concise design documentation to gather feedback from across the team to find the best solution.
What we offer:
- Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
- Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
- MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance
- Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
- Our office is centrally located in Mountain View, CA
- Office perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging
- Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance
- Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation)
- Fidelity 401(k)
- Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA
- Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)
The pay range listed below reflects the base salary in our SF/Silicon Valley location, across several internal levels. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors including: work location, experience, relevant training, education, skill level and performance during interview. Total compensation at Kodiak includes base pay, equity, bonus and a competitive benefits package
Skills Required
- BS, MS, or PhD with academic or industry experience building navigation, localization, and odometry systems
- Expertise in C++
- Strong software engineering skills and experience building high-reliability deployed applications
- Experience transforming GNSS, IMU, wheel-speed, and other sensor data into 6-DOF pose
- Experience with Kalman filtering, factor graphs, or comparable state-estimation techniques
- Experience with computer vision, visual odometry, and/or point-cloud odometry
- History of mentoring engineers and improving team technical practices
- Ability to define and build infrastructure components from scratch
- Strong communication and technical design-documentation skills
Kodiak Robotics Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Kodiak Robotics and has not been reviewed or approved by Kodiak Robotics.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered market-competitive for core engineering roles, with role postings indicating strong senior bands and offers aligned to autonomy peers. Salary ranges visible on listings reinforce competitiveness for experienced technical hires.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are commonly included with standard multi‑year vesting, and listings frequently note salary plus bonus and equity as part of offers. This makes ownership a regular component of total rewards for technical hires.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage includes medical, dental, and vision alongside life and short‑/long‑term disability, with FSA/HSA options available. Wellness partners such as mental‑health and primary‑care services are highlighted alongside core plans.
Kodiak Robotics Insights
What We Do
Kodiak Robotics is an autonomous technology company redefining the long-haul trucking industry. We believe self-driving trucks will be the first economically viable application of autonomous vehicle technology. We founded Kodiak in the spring of 2018 to make that belief a reality. Safety is our top priority. We are taking a safe and responsible approach to developing and testing our technology. We are proud to work with some of the best in the business. We’ve built a world class team of technologists from leading autonomous driving programs who know the industry inside and out. Our combined experience and commitment to the vision will allow us to put self-driving technology on the road in the safest and most effective way.
