Staff SLAM/ML Engineer, Spot Autonomy

About

In this role as a Staff Machine Learning Engineer, you will have the opportunity to develop Spot’s next generation autonomy capabilities. You will research & integrate state-of-the‑art approaches in the areas of perception, localization and navigation to ensure that our robots can navigate the world robustly and confidently. As a part of the Spot Autonomy Team, you will closely collaborate with other skilled researchers & engineers who are passionate about Spot’s autonomy capabilities. Being embedded in the broader Spot R&D team, you will get a chance to further collaborate with other groups and experts from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Responsibilities

• Develop Spot’s next generation localization, mapping, perception and autonomy capabilities and deliver them to the product.
• Apply and develop novel ML‑based approaches to solve complex challenges in semantically‑aware navigation and localization.
• Shape the team's strategy for ML model architectures, datasets, and pipelines to achieve maximum model performance.
• Produce high‑quality, performant code in C++ and Python.
• Design and execute rigorous experiments using both simulated and real‑world robot data to ensure solutions not only achieve state‑of‑the‑art performance but are also robust and computationally efficient in real‑world deployments.

Required Qualifications

• A Masters degree in Computer Science, Robotics or related field and 3+ years of professional experience
• A solid understanding of traditional computer vision, robotics and navigation methods (SLAM) and their typical strengths & shortcomings
• First‑hand experience in Machine Learning and data driven approaches to visual perception problems.
• A good understanding of recent ML approaches such as LLMs & ViTs.
• Experience with Machine Learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch)
• Experienced in writing performant, well‑structured, and testable C++ and Python code
• Be a team player and good communicator, able to work well in a dynamic and collaborative environment
• Have a passion for quality and autonomous robots

Preferred Qualifications

• A PhD in Computer Science, Robotics or related field.
• A strong background in SLAM / factor graphs (e.g. gtsam, g2o, Ceres), and ideally ML‑enhanced navigation, such as semantic SLAM.
• Experience with end‑2‑end semantic navigation approaches.
• A track record of relevant publications or product deliverables.

Compensation

The salary or hourly pay range for this position will be clearly stated in the job posting as required by Massachusetts law. The base pay range for this position is between $155,000.00‑ $210,000.00. Base pay will depend on multiple individualized factors including, but not limited to internal equity, job‑related knowledge, skills and experience. This range represents a good‑faith estimate of compensation at the time of posting.

Benefits

Boston Dynamics offers a generous benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401(k), paid time off and an annual bonus structure. Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer for employment.

About Boston Dynamics

We are growing rapidly, building a commercial company that delivers cutting‑edge technology and solutions to our customers from industrial applications to logistics and warehouse solutions.