EVONA · 18 hours ago
Senior Autonomy, State Estimation Lead
Golden, CO
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level
5+ years expEVONA is a fast-growing space robotics company seeking an experienced Senior Autonomy Engineer, State Estimation Lead to advance the state estimation stack for autonomous robotic platforms. This role involves leading the architecture, development, and validation of state estimation systems crucial for reliable autonomy in challenging environments.
Staffing & Recruiting
No H1B
U.S. Citizen Only
Responsibilities
Own the end-to-end state estimation architecture, including local state propagation, global localization, and external measurement integration
Design, implement, and validate probabilistic state estimation systems such as extended Kalman filters, factor-graph optimization, and smoothing-based estimators
Develop and maintain global and relative localization solutions for autonomous vehicles
Fuse measurements from onboard and external sensors, and infer dynamic constraints from terrain, vehicle health, and operational signals
Define estimator interfaces, data products, timing requirements, and covariance conventions for downstream systems including planning, control, fault management, and mission operations
Establish performance requirements, observability analysis, consistency checks, and failure detection strategies
Lead offline analysis, simulation, and field validation across representative operational scenarios
Guide sensor fusion strategies in collaboration with sensor and systems engineering teams, including calibration, latency handling, and fault tolerance
Support anomaly investigation, estimator tuning, and root-cause analysis during integration and field operations
Conduct field tests and simulations to validate and refine algorithms and software
Ensure estimation software meets safety, reliability, and performance standards appropriate for space and robotics applications
Mentor engineers and promote a culture of technical excellence and curiosity
Stay current with advances in autonomy, robotics, and estimation, and apply them where appropriate
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace, Applied Mathematics, or a related field
5+ years of professional experience developing state estimation systems for robotics, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, or similar domains
Strong foundation in estimation theory, uncertainty propagation, observability, and applied filtering
Hands-on experience with probabilistic estimation techniques such as EKF, UKF, factor graphs, or smoothing methods
Experience with global localization or map-referenced estimation techniques, including terrain matching or image-based localization
Proficiency in C++ and Python, with experience using ROS
Experience providing technical leadership or mentoring engineers on complex algorithmic systems
Comfortable working in unstructured environments and taking ownership of ambiguous problems
US Person status
Preferred
Experience with GPS-denied navigation or planetary robotics
Background integrating estimation with control systems, planners, or fault management frameworks
Experience with terrain-relative navigation or photoclinometry
Familiarity with simulation and validation tools for estimation performance
Experience with delayed updates, intermittent absolute measurements, or long-duration autonomy
Graduate degree in robotics, aerospace, or a related discipline
Strong cross-disciplinary communication skills
Company
EVONA
We believe in the evolution of knowledge and the progression of people - it is so core to our business, it's the meaning of our name: EVO - to evolve, ONA - people.
51-200 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageLeadership Team
Jack Madley
Co-Founder
Company data provided by crunchbase