Senior/Staff Software Engineer – Localization (Visual Odometry)

Who we are

Gatik, the leader in autonomous middle-mile logistics, is revolutionizing the B2B supply chain with its autonomous transportation-as-a-service (ATaaS) solution and prioritizing safe, consistent deliveries while streamlining freight movement by reducing congestion. The company focuses on short-haul, B2B logistics for Fortune 500 retailers and in 2021 launched the world’s first fully driverless commercial transportation service with Walmart. Gatik's Class 3-7 autonomous trucks are commercially deployed across major markets, including Texas, Arkansas, and Ontario, Canada, driving innovation in freight transportation. 

The company's proprietary Level 4 autonomous technology, Gatik Carrier™, is custom-built to transport freight safely and efficiently between pick-up and drop-off locations on the middle mile. With robust capabilities in both highway and urban environments, Gatik Carrier™ serves as an all-encompassing solution that integrates advanced software and hardware powering the fleet, facilitating effortless integration into customers' logistics operations. 

About the role

We are looking for a Senior or Staff Software Engineer with a strong background in Visual Odometry (VO) and Localization to join our autonomy team. This role is critical to building precise, real-time vehicle localization systems using camera-based perception for autonomous driving applications. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience deploying VO systems in real-world environments, particularly in the autonomous vehicle (AV) domain, and brings solid C++ engineering skills to architect robust, high-performance software solutions.

This role is onsite 5 days per week at our Santa Clara, CA office.

What you'll do

• Design and develop real-time Visual Odometry pipelines using monocular, stereo, or RGB-D camera inputs.
• Implement robust camera-based localization algorithms, including visual-inertial odometry (VIO), feature tracking, motion estimation, and scale recovery.
• Integrate VO systems with IMU, GPS, and other sensor data to enhance pose estimation accuracy and stability.
• Collaborate with the mapping, perception, and control teams to integrate localization with the AV software stack.
• Develop and optimize production-quality code in modern C++ for real-time performance on embedded compute platforms.
• Analyze system performance in diverse environmental conditions and drive improvements for reliability, accuracy, and robustness.
• Participate in code reviews, mentor team members, and contribute to architectural decisions.
• Stay up to date with the latest research in SLAM, VIO, and VO, and help transition promising techniques into production

What we're looking for

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in robotics, computer vision, or autonomy; 3+ years specifically in Visual Odometry or VIO.
• Experience working on Autonomous Vehicle platforms (e.g., development, testing, or deployment of AV systems).
• Expert proficiency in C++ (C++14/17/20) and modern software engineering best practices.
• Solid understanding of epipolar geometry, camera calibration, bundle adjustment, and optimization techniques.
• Hands-on experience with open-source VO/SLAM libraries such as ORB-SLAM, VINS-Fusion, OpenVINS, or similar.
• Experience working with ROS/ROS2, Linux development environments, and version control systems.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience integrating visual odometry with Lidar, GPS, or map-based localization.
• Knowledge of GPU acceleration techniques (CUDA/OpenCV/OpenGL) for computer vision pipelines.
• Familiarity with real-world deployment constraints such as environmental variability, sensor degradation, and compute limitations.
• Experience in sensor calibration, time synchronization, and data preprocessing pipelines.
• Contributions to relevant open-source projects or publications in VO, VIO, or SLAM.

Salary Range - $170,000- $260,000

More about Gatik

Founded in 2017 by experts in autonomous vehicle technology, Gatik has rapidly expanded its presence to Mountain View, Dallas-Fort Worth, Arkansas, and Toronto. As the first and only company to achieve fully driverless middle-mile commercial deliveries, Gatik holds a unique and defensible position in the AV industry, with a clear trajectory toward sustainable growth and profitability.

We have delivered complete, proprietary AV technology - an integration of software and hardware - to enable earlier successes for our clients in constrained Level 4 autonomy.  By choosing the middle mile – with defined point-to-point delivery, we have simplified some of the more complex AV challenges, enabling us to achieve full autonomy ahead of competitors. Given extensive knowledge of Gatik’s well-defined, fixed route ODDs and hybrid architecture, we are able to hyper-optimize our models with exponentially less data, establish gate-keeping mechanisms to maintain explainability, and ensure continued safety of the system for unmanned operations.

Visit us at Gatik for more company information and Careers at Gatik for more open roles.

Notable News

• Bloomberg: Autonomous Trucking Firm Gatik Inks Contracts Worth $600 Million
• Forbes: Hundreds’ Of Gatik Robot Delivery Trucks Headed For U.S. Roads
• Forbes:Gatik And Loblaw Announce Largest Commercial Deployment Of AV Trucks
• Forbes: Forget robotaxis. Upstart Gatik sees middle-mile deliveries as the path to profitable AVs
• Tech Brew: Gatik AI exec unpacks the regulations that could shape the AV industry
• Business Wire: Gatik Paves the Way for Safe Driverless Operations (‘Freight-Only’) at Scale with Industry-First Third-Party Safety Assessment Framework
• Auto Futures: Autonomous Trucking Group Gatik Secures Investment From NIPPON EXPRESS HOLDINGS
• Automotive News: Gatik foresees hundreds of self-driving trucks on road soon, and that's just the beginning
• Forbes: Isuzu And Gatik Go All In To Scale Up Driverless Freight Services
• Bloomberg: Autonomous Vehicle Startup Takes Off by Picking Off Easier Routes
• Reuters: Driverless vehicles on limited routes bump along despite US robotaxi scrutiny

Taking care of our team

At Gatik, we connect people of extraordinary talent and experience to an opportunity to create a more resilient supply chain and contribute to our environment’s sustainability. We are diverse in our backgrounds and perspectives yet united by a bold vision and shared commitment to our values. Our culture emphasizes the importance of collaboration, respect and agility.

We at Gatik strive to create a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone feels they have opportunities to succeed and grow because we know that together we can do great things. We are committed to an inclusive and diverse team. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status or any legally protected status.