Software Engineer, State Estimation & Localization
Bedrock Robotics · San Francisco
Join the team bringing autonomy to the built world
At Bedrock, we're moving AI out of the lab and onto real job sites. Our team includes veterans who helped launch Waymo, scaled Segment to a $3.2B acquisition, and grew Uber Freight to $5B in revenue. We retrofit the heavy equipment contractors already own, starting with excavators, so experienced crews can safely take on more projects and deliver more of the critical infrastructure our society needs.
In August 2026, Bedrock-equipped excavators began doing fully autonomous, paid work on live commercial job sites. We've more than doubled our customer base since 2025, and our machines now work with contractors across the South, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic
In October 2026, we raised a $600M Series C co-led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital, bringing our total funding to nearly $1B. We're using it to put more autonomous machines to work, build the field and operations teams behind every deployment, and expand into new machine types and job-site tasks.
This is where algorithms meet steel-toed boots. You'll work alongside construction veterans and world-class engineers to solve physical-world problems that simulations can't touch. If you're ready to do meaningful work on hard problems, we'd love to have you join us.
We’re looking for a Software Engineer to develop the state-estimation systems that allow autonomous machines to understand their position, orientation, motion, and configuration. You’ll build production software that combines data from GNSS, IMUs, lidar, machine sensors, and other sources in rugged environments the machines themselves are actively reshaping.
Accurate state estimation is essential to both safety and performance. Your work will help our machines operate precisely, recognize when sensor data or estimates are unreliable, and respond safely when inputs are delayed, degraded, or unavailable.
Depending on your background, you may focus on real-time sensor fusion, estimator reliability, lidar-based estimation, offline optimization, or calibration. This is a hands-on role spanning algorithm design, production software, data analysis, and testing on real machines.
What you’ll do:
Design, implement, and deploy state-estimation and localization algorithms for autonomous construction machines
Combine GNSS, IMU, lidar, and machine-sensor data into accurate, real-time estimates of machine position, motion, and configuration
Improve reliability through sensor monitoring, consistency checks, fault detection, trustworthy confidence estimates, redundancy, and graceful degradation
Handle measurements that arrive late, out of order, intermittently, or not at all
Build ground-truth systems, offline reference estimators, metrics, and regression tests that measure performance and expose failures
Work on related problems such as sensor calibration, clock synchronization, lidar-based arm estimation, and joint offline estimation
Diagnose issues using field data, recorded-data replay, and simulation, then test improvements on physical machines
Collaborate with controls, perception, safety, hardware, and systems teams to improve the performance of the complete autonomy system
What we're looking for:
4+ years of professional engineering or applied research experience in state estimation, localization, navigation, SLAM, or sensor fusion
Strong foundations in probabilistic estimation, linear algebra, 3D geometry, and numerical methods
Hands-on experience with one or more of GNSS/INS fusion, Kalman filtering, factor graphs, lidar or visual odometry, point-cloud registration, or sensor calibration
Strong production software skills in Rust or modern C++. Our production stack is primarily Rust, and we will support experienced C++ engineers as they ramp up
Experience measuring estimator performance using ground truth, recorded data, simulation, and real-world testing
Strong debugging and data-analysis skills, including the ability to investigate problems across algorithms, software, sensors, and hardware
A degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Ways to stand out:
Experience deploying state-estimation systems on autonomous vehicles, robots, or embedded platforms
Experience with estimator monitoring, uncertainty, fault detection, redundancy, or safety-relevant systems
Experience with nonlinear optimization, factor graphs, or smoothing
Deep knowledge of GNSS, inertial sensing, lidar, sensor timing, calibration, and real-world failure modes
Experience with lidar localization, ICP, continuous-time estimation, or articulated-machine estimation
Experience building offline reference estimators or independent ground-truth systems
Production experience with Rust
Familiarity with construction, mining, agricultural, or other heavy industrial machines
Other special aspects of the role:
Based in San Francisco with the ability to be onsite at our SF office 3 day a week
Bedrock Robotics is an Equal Opportunity Employer
We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic.
Reasonable Accommodations
We want our hiring process to be accessible to everyone. If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, please let your recruiter know so we can support you.
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