Senior Research Engineer

Company Description

Polaris Wireless is a market-leading innovator of high accuracy, high value, and high confidence software-based wireless Location Intelligence solutions. Founded in 2001 to deliver FCC-compliant E911 location in the U.S., the company has evolved its technology to locate mobile devices across all wireless carrier networks nationwide, with analytics-driven applications that deliver actionable intelligence in near real time. Customers include wireless carriers, government agencies, and commercial enterprises. Polaris Wireless operates globally across North America, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

Polaris Wireless is a Silicon Valley-based company with over 130 issued patents in location technology, reflecting deep technical expertise and sustained innovation. The company continues to advance its Wireless Location Signatures (WLSTM), a software-based RF pattern matching technology that cannot be disabled or spoofed. Polaris has also developed an indoor 3D location solution leveraging patented vertical positioning technology that meets the FCC’s most stringent E911 requirements. Its solutions operate across all mobile devices, all air interfaces (2G, 3G, 4G LTE, and 5G), and in challenging dense urban and indoor environments.

Polaris Wireless has developed an analytics platform that transforms high-accuracy location data into actionable intelligence for mission-critical applications. The platform incorporates AI/ML to model mobility patterns and subscriber behavior and extends into agentic and multi-modal AI to uncover deeper insights.

The company’s software processes petabyte-scale data to enable active and passive tracking of mobile devices, supporting real-time threat monitoring and predictive analysis across geographic regions. Together, its location and analytics platforms provide a full-stack national security location intelligence solution.

Polaris Wireless is active in industry standards groups, such as 3GPP, and participates in E911 regulatory proceedings. The company is engaged with several U.S. government agencies in support of its business pursuits in the U.S. and abroad. Polaris Wireless has also received regular industry recognition for its innovation, most recently receiving the Frost & Sullivan 2025 Enabling Technology Leader recognition for Best Practices in the Global Location Determination Technologies Industry (more information here).

The company’s location solutions are currently being used in the United States, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, supporting more than 50 government and commercial deployments worldwide.

Polaris Wireless is a U.S. company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and has an international sales office in Zug Switzerland, with additional offices in the Middle East and Asia.

Polaris Wireless seeks creative, motivated, and collaborative individuals with the highest standards of personal integrity to join our team.

Role Description

As a Senior Research Engineer, you will work on some of the hardest problems in wireless geolocation: estimating position from incomplete, noisy, and often contradictory data collected from real-world cellular networks.

This role sits at the intersection of estimation theory, RF propagation, and large-scale data analysis. You will develop algorithms that operate under real-world constraints, not idealized conditions, and transition those algorithms into production systems used in public safety and national security applications. Many of the problems you will work on are ill-posed, with limited or imperfect ground truth.

You will be expected to take ownership of problems from initial concept through prototyping and into productization, working closely with engineering teams to ensure your work performs reliably at scale.

Example problems you may work on include:

• Estimating device location using incomplete RF measurements (e.g., RSRP, timing advance) in dense urban environments
• Fusing heterogeneous data sources to improve accuracy and robustness of location estimates
• Designing probabilistic models to quantify uncertainty and confidence in positioning results
• Extending terrestrial positioning techniques to hybrid terrestrial/non-terrestrial (NTN) systems

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of estimation algorithms for wireless geolocation using real-world measurement data (e.g., RSRP, timing advance, network topology)
• Formulate and solve ill-posed inference problems using techniques such as Bayesian estimation, filtering, and optimization
• Prototype and evaluate algorithms against large-scale, noisy datasets collected from operational networks
• Design experiments and validation frameworks to quantify accuracy, robustness, and failure modes
• Work closely with software engineering teams to transition research prototypes into production systems
• Contribute to system-level design decisions, including tradeoffs between accuracy, latency, and scalability
• Present technical findings clearly to both engineering and executive audiences
• Influence research direction by identifying high-impact problems aligned with business and product needs

Qualifications

Education

• PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, or related field, or equivalent experience solving complex estimation or inference problems

Technical Skills

• Strong background in estimation theory (e.g., least squares, maximum likelihood, Kalman filtering, Bayesian methods)
• Solid foundation in probability, statistics, and optimization
• Understanding of RF propagation, wireless measurements, and cellular network behavior
• Strong programming skills (Python and/or MATLAB; experience with production-oriented code is a plus)
• Strong proficiency using AI-assisted tools to accelerate coding, data analysis, and research workflows
• Familiarity with applying AI/ML methods to real-world engineering problems, including data exploration, model development, and evaluation

Experience

• Experience developing algorithms for real-world systems where data is noisy, sparse, or biased
• Demonstrated ability to take a problem from formulation through implementation and validation
• Experience working with large datasets and evaluating model performance under real-world conditions
• Preferred: experience in telecommunications, 3GPP standards, or wireless positioning systems
• Preferred: experience with geolocation techniques (e.g., trilateration, fingerprinting, sensor fusion)
• Preferred: experience with Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), including LEO satellite systems, and understanding of associated positioning challenges (e.g., RTT-based methods, ephemeris considerations, and hybrid terrestrial/non-terrestrial architectures)

Additional Traits

• Comfortable working in ambiguous problem spaces with limited ground truth
• Able to balance theoretical rigor with practical constraints
• Strong communicator who can explain complex ideas clearly
• Self-directed and capable of driving projects forward with minimal oversight

Polaris Wireless seeks engineers who are motivated by difficult problems, imperfect data, and the challenge of building systems that perform reliably in the real world.

Compensation and Benefits

· Competitive salary and performance-based bonus.

· Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.

· 401k match and retirement plan.

· Professional development and training opportunities.

· Flexible work arrangements and generous paid time off.