Senior Navigation Software Engineer (Autonomous Robotics)

Company Description

GENERATIVE Robotics (GR) develops autonomous mobile robots (AMR) — systems that move, perceive and act independently in real-world environments. GR was founded in Leipzig in 2026 and is in its early stage: the first system is being built, as are the company's structures and processes.

At a Glance

• Tasks: Develop navigation and localization systems for our autonomous mobile robot
• Company: Robotics startup in early stage, three founders, based in Leipzig
• Benefits: Direct influence on the navigation architecture of the company's first own platform
• Why this role: Help shape the autonomy stack from the ground up, not iterate on an existing system
• Qualifications: Several years of experience in navigation, localization or autonomous systems, strong Python and C++ skills

Your Mission & Challenges

For our autonomy team, we are looking for an experienced engineer to develop robust navigation and localization systems for our autonomous mobile robot — from sensor fusion to path planning in complex, dynamic environments.

You will work closely with perception, hardware and product teams to bring navigation reliably and safely into real-world deployment.

Your Main Tasks

• Select, tune, integrate and adapt robust localization and SLAM pipelines using multi-sensor fusion (LiDAR, cameras, IMU, wheel odometry), ideally within the ROS2 framework
• Select, tune and integrate path planning and obstacle avoidance algorithms for safe navigation around people and objects
• Develop behavior and decision logic that enables the robot to respond to complex, dynamic navigation challenges
• Test and validate navigation and localization in simulation environments before deployment to real hardware
• Contribute to regression testing pipelines and CI/CD for navigation and localization modules
• Work closely with cross-functional teams and actively contribute to the autonomy roadmap

What We're Looking Forward To

• Degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Software Engineering or a comparable field
• Several years of professional experience in mobile robot navigation, localization or autonomous systems
• Strong proficiency in Python and C++
• Solid understanding of SLAM algorithms, state estimation, sensor fusion and path planning
• Experience extending and customizing the Nav2 stack (e.g. custom recovery behaviors, custom costmap layers)
• Experience with LiDAR, depth cameras, IMUs and odometry integration
• Familiarity with behavior trees and robot state machines
• Experience writing tests for robotics systems and working with CI/CD pipelines and Git

Nice to Have

• Experience with multi-robot coordination and route planning
• Experience with multi-robot mapping and localization, including map persistence
• Publications at leading robotics conferences (ICRA, RSS, IROS, CoRL)