Senior Autonomy Engineer - Ground Robotics

Lucid Bots•Charlotte, NC

About The Position

About Lucid Bots Lucid Bots is an AI robotics company building the world’s most productive and responsible robots. Our mission is simple: extend human reach. We design intelligent machines that take on dangerous, demanding, and repetitive work—so people don’t have to. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, we design, engineer, manufacture, and support our products in the United States. Our production-ready robots are deployed by customers around the world to improve safety, increase productivity, and elevate operational standards. We are one of the fastest-growing manufacturing companies in the United States, recently ranked fourth nationally. Backed by leading investors including Y Combinator (S19), Cubit Capital, Idea Fund Partners, Danu Ventures, and others, we are scaling quickly at the intersection of AI, hardware, and real-world impact. We’re building more than robots—we’re building the future of physical AI. Our Core Values and How We Work Together At Lucid Bots, we’re building something extraordinary - and how we work matters just as much as what we build. These values guide how we hire, grow, and show up for one another. Expedition Behavior - We climb as one. No silos, no “that’s not my job.” We protect the team and share the load. Grow with Humility - We’re relentless learners. We seek feedback, own mistakes, and get better every day. Lift People Up - Humans come first. We care fiercely, speak honestly, and design for real people in real conditions. Build the Extraordinary - We take ownership, reject the ordinary, and run toward hard problems. We live Above the Line: we take responsibility, create solutions, and shape the future. If these values energize you, you’ll thrive here. If they feel like too much, this may not be the right climb - and that’s okay. The Role We’re hiring a Senior Autonomy Engineer to own the autonomy stack for our ground robot platform. You’ve done this before — taken a robot from simulation to real-world deployment, and seen what breaks along the way. You understand that autonomy isn’t finished when it works once — it’s finished when it works every time. You’ll be the technical authority on what “production-ready autonomy” means at Lucid Bots.

Requirements

5–10 years of experience in robotics or autonomy systems
Experience shipping at least one autonomous mobile robot to production
Strong hands-on experience with ROS 2
Deep expertise in at least two of: perception, SLAM/localization, motion planning, or controls
Experience with robots operating in outdoor or unstructured environments
Strong programming skills with production-quality code

Responsibilities

Deliver autonomy systems that perform reliably in real-world environments
Own the full autonomy stack — perception, localization, planning, navigation — and ensure consistent performance across deployments
Enable parallel development through high-quality simulation
Build and improve simulation environments that allow the team to develop and validate autonomy before hardware is finalized
Systematically close the sim-to-real gap
Quantify where simulation diverges from real-world behavior and drive improvements that increase field reliability
Define what “done” looks like for autonomy
Establish clear, measurable performance criteria for autonomous operation — not subjective definitions of success
Build systems that scale beyond the demo
Architect autonomy software that performs reliably across many customers, environments, and edge cases
Raise the technical bar of the team
Mentor engineers, review code and architecture, and guide the team toward production-grade systems
Ensure hardware and autonomy are designed together
Partner closely with hardware engineers to build systems optimized for automation from the start