Robotics Engineer (Perception)

Sabanto•Itasca, IL

About The Position

Sabanto is a venture-backed, Illinois-based technology company developing autonomous agricultural equipment and Farming-as-a-Service solutions. The Perception-focused Robotics Engineer builds sensing and perception systems that enable autonomous tractors and other agricultural equipment to understand their surroundings. The role takes sensors from bench testing through production field environments, including challenging conditions such as dust, glare, rain, and crop canopy, and turns sensor data into a reliable world model for navigation, safety, and control systems. The position involves developing and deploying perception pipelines, integrating and calibrating sensors, fusing sensor data, optimizing computer vision models for edge hardware, and building data collection and evaluation processes. It also includes investigating issues found in field operation, validating changes with tests and on-vehicle trials, and occasional travel to customer sites. Sabanto describes its work culture as fast-paced and demanding, while offering flexibility, autonomy, and career opportunities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in computer science, robotics, electrical engineering, or a related field.
Strong quantitative, analytical, and problem-solving skills, with comfort in geometry, linear algebra, and probabilistic estimation.
Entrepreneurial attitude and keen attention to detail.
Ability to code with and without AI assistance.
Organized and disciplined, with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
Industriousness; ideally able to drive or willing to learn to drive tractors and other four-wheeled vehicles.
Enthusiasm for learning about agriculture, understanding farmers' priorities, and helping them succeed with the company's offerings.

Nice To Haves

Five or more years building perception, computer vision, or other real-time sensing applications, with a track record of shipping to production hardware outside the lab.
Mastery of C++ and/or Python.
Mastery of ROS/ROS2, including sensor drivers and high-bandwidth message pipelines.
Hands-on experience integrating and calibrating cameras, LiDAR, and/or radar in production environments.
Experience with computer vision and point-cloud libraries such as OpenCV, PCL, or Open3D.
Experience training and deploying deep learning models for detection or segmentation on edge hardware, using tools such as PyTorch, ONNX, TensorRT, or NVIDIA Jetson.
Experience with sensor fusion, state estimation, and multi-object tracking, such as Kalman filters.
Experience working with geospatial data.
Familiarity with functional safety standards for autonomous machinery, such as ISO 25119, ISO 18497, or ISO 13849.
Experience working with Docker-based software and build pipelines.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and harden perception pipelines for obstacle detection, classification, and tracking to support safe operation of autonomous agricultural equipment.
Integrate cameras, LiDAR, radar, and GNSS/IMU sensors onto tractors and implements, including drivers, intrinsic and extrinsic calibration, and time synchronization.
Fuse multi-sensor data into a world model for navigation, safety, control, and sequencing systems.
Evaluate, select, and integrate third-party sensors and perception vendors from bench prototype through production deployment.
Deploy and optimize computer vision models on edge compute within real-time latency, thermal, and power constraints.
Build data collection, labeling, and evaluation pipelines using field logs to measure and improve perception performance across crops, seasons, lighting, and weather.
Triage, reproduce, and resolve field perception issues using recorded sensor data.
Travel occasionally to customer sites to observe and refine perception systems.
Write tested, hardened, and safe code, including unit tests, replay tests against real field data, and on-vehicle validation before shipping changes.