Sr. R&D Engineer
Pointr · Istanbul
Our Story
Pointr is the market leader in Indoor Mapping, Location and Analytics, and the inventor of AI-based map production. Its innovative (20+ patents) Pointr Maps™ platform is used by millions of users across offices, retail locations, airports, hospitals, and more every month.
As the top choice of Fortune 100 customers and billions of sqft. deployed globally (30+ countries), Pointr is always on the lookout for great team members to support its fast growth. Our core values are Ownership, Harmony, and Scale, and we look for Passionate, Kind, and No-Ego team members to join the team.
Role Overview
We're looking for a Sr. R&D Engineer to join the Location team and improve the positioning engine behind Pointr's blue dot offering, used in airports, hospitals, and corporate campuses. The engine turns noisy real-world sensor data into a reliable location estimate, indoors and outdoors. It runs primarily on iOS and Android, with the shared C++ core also supporting WebAssembly and backend services.
You will take algorithm improvements from research through implementation, validation on real venue data, and release. The work spans probabilistic estimation, sensor fusion, and applied geometry, including the native mobile scanning code that supplies the engine's measurements.
You'll join a small, senior team with ownership over technical decisions and a short path from experiments to customer deployments.
What You'll Do
Improve the accuracy, responsiveness, and robustness of Pointr's indoor-outdoor positioning algorithms across a wide range of venue types, devices, and real-world conditions.
Research, develop, and evaluate positioning algorithms, spanning classical estimation and machine learning approaches, and measure whether they improve results on real venue data.
Research and investigate emerging positioning technologies. Some work involves development kits, reference hardware, and measurement setups for capabilities not yet available on shipping phones.
Build and use offline replay, accuracy regression suites, and simulation tools to measure improvements. Validate on real iOS and Android devices, where sensor behavior and runtime constraints can differ from desktop results.
Develop production code in the shared C++ engine and the native iOS and Android sensor and radio scanning layers, with attention to performance, memory use, thread safety, and test coverage.
Turn field issues, such as suboptimal hardware deployments or unexpected sensor behavior, into reproducible test cases and engine improvements.
Use AI coding agents daily for research and development, and take responsibility for reviewing and validating their output.
Shape technical decisions through experiments and code review. Document the reasoning behind your work and contribute invention disclosures where warranted.
What Success Looks Like
First 90 days: independently run and interpret the accuracy measurement tools, and ship your first engine improvement with tests and on-device validation.
6 months: own a significant area of the engine, deliver measurable positioning improvements, and diagnose field issues from customer venues.
12 months: set technical direction and measurement standards for your area, with improvements deployed at customer scale. Help the team develop and validate algorithms more effectively through reviews and better tooling.
What We Seek
6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including performance-sensitive production code. Depth in algorithms and estimation matters more than your current programming language; prior C++ experience is preferred, not required.
Strong grounding in probabilistic state estimation and sensor fusion, including recursive Bayesian filtering and particle-based methods, with the judgment to choose an approach suited to the problem.
Solid applied mathematics, including linear algebra, probability, numerical methods, and geometry. You can distinguish model limitations from data quality problems.
Experience working with noisy, real-world sensor time series: reproducing issues from recorded traces, isolating causes, and validating changes with measurable results and automated tests.
Daily use of AI coding agents and a basic understanding of how they work, including context windows, tool use, prompting, instruction files, and common failure modes. You can direct agents effectively and critically review their output.
Working knowledge of iOS or Android development, enough to build and debug on real devices and modify native platform code.
Comfort with native development tools, including build systems, Git, compilers, sanitizers, and profilers, and with cross-platform constraints.
Clear technical communication with engineers and non-engineers, and a collaborative approach to technical disagreements and code review.
Professional fluency in English, both written and spoken.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience in indoor positioning, GNSS, robotics, SLAM, pedestrian dead reckoning, or RF signal processing.
Hands-on experience with Claude Code or OpenAI Codex; other AI coding agents also qualify. Experience building agent tools or integrations is a plus.
Experience with modern C++, Swift, or Kotlin, or shipping a shared native core in iOS and Android apps.
Familiarity with mobile constraints that affect positioning, including background execution, sensor and radio scanning APIs, power budgets, and device differences.
Knowledge of ranging and positioning methods used with radio technologies such as BLE, UWB, or Wi-Fi.
Experience with computational geometry, geospatial data, or map processing. Wayfinding and graph algorithms are useful secondary skills.
Experience applying machine learning to motion or signal models, with evidence that it improves on classical estimation methods.
Experience building simulation or visualization tools for algorithm development.
An MS or PhD in a relevant field, research publications, or equivalent demonstrated depth in positioning, estimation, or spatial algorithms.
What We Offer
A supportive, kind (no-ego), and smart team
International environment and inclusive culture
Competitive base salary and stock options, based on experience and market
Private supplementary health insurance, in addition to statutory SGK coverage
Paid annual leave under Turkish Labor Law (14 days/year for years 1–5 of service, rising with tenure), plus 5 additional paid days in your first year as a Pointr benefit
Official public holidays as set by the Turkish government (approximately 15 days in 2026, including national holidays and the Ramadan and Sacrifice Feast holidays)
Paid sick leave with a doctor's report, per Turkish Labor Law
24 weeks of paid maternity leave (state-paid) and up to 6 weeks of paid paternity leave, topped up by Pointr Bilişim above the statutory minimum
Mandatory SGK social security contributions
Do Not Meet Every Requirement? Apply anyway. We are not looking for perfect resumes. We are looking for the right teammate who is excited to contribute to our mission and grow with us.
How We Use Your Data
Pointr Bilişim A.Ş. processes the personal data you submit as part of your application in accordance with Turkey's Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK), solely to assess your candidacy and manage recruitment. Our full candidate clarification notice (Aydınlatma Metni) is available upon request.
#LI-REMOTE
Do Not Meet Every Requirement? Apply anyway. We are not looking for perfect resumes. We are looking for the right teammate who is excited to contribute to our mission and grow with us.
We Succeed Together
Great outcomes happen when talented, diverse people come together with a shared purpose. We value empathy, humility, and expertise, and we believe the best ideas come from collaboration, thoughtful challenges, and open feedback.
We empower our teams with clear goals and ownership, creating an environment where everyone can contribute, grow, and succeed. We take responsibility for our individual and collective development, celebrate our progress, learn from our experiences, and recognize the impact we create together.
We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a company that embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We have read the studies and understand that diverse teams build better products, bring more perspective to the table, contribute to a company’s financial success, and help foster a more inclusive environment for all employees, but the bottom line is that it's the right thing to do.
We are committed to providing an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or recruiting process, please reach out to your recruiter or contact our team at hiring@pointr.tech.
A note on the use of AI in our interview process
While we understand that AI is an important tool in a modern skillset, we ask that you do not utilize AI assistants live on our interviews. Of course, use any tools you need to prepare! But we'd like for you to have a real human-to-human conversation with our team.
On our end, we utilize a platform called Granola as a notetaker and review tool to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process.
Beware of scammers! All legitimate communication from Pointr regarding your application will come directly from an @pointr.tech email address and through our applicant tracking system, Ashby. We will never ask for personal financial information or conduct interviews outside of these official channels.