The posting
ABOUT LIGHTSPEED
LightSpeed Build Technologies is revolutionizing the construction industry through AI-powered robotics. Our flagship systems—BRUTE for automated wall panel manufacturing and DEX for on-site collaborative construction—are addressing the global housing crisis by delivering unprecedented speed, precision, and affordability in homebuilding.
POSITION OVERVIEW
As Senior World Sensing Engineer, you will own how LightSpeed's robots sense and understand the world. You will architect the sensor array on every robot, from cameras and lidar to force-torque and process sensors, and the pipeline that turns those signals into one trusted world model: where everything really is, what state it is in, and how sure we are.
WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON
SENSOR ARRAY AND PIPELINE
- Define the sensor suite for every robot family across factory cells, mobile DEX and roof configurations, and upgrade it when a trade needs a signal we don't yet sense:
- Vision: wrist RGB-D and stereo for close-range manipulation, cell and head cameras for scene coverage, global-shutter cameras for fast motion
- Lidar: 3D lidar for mapping, localization and site safety on mobile robots
- Contact: 6-axis force-torque at each wrist, tactile sensing on grippers and hands
- Proprioception: joint encoders, motor current and IMU on arms, bases and the gantry
- Tool and process: laser line profilers and time-of-flight for surface, gap and depth; tool state, flow and pressure for nailers, pumps and spray
- Site and safety: safety-rated area scanners, and site positioning such as a total station or UWB where lidar alone isn't enough
- Own sensor selection, position and orientation on every robot, for coverage, occlusion and changing light; the application team handles mounting and protection against dust and overspray
- Own time synchronization across every sensor, robot state and teleoperation stream
- Own the calibration strategy (intrinsic, extrinsic, hand-eye, camera-lidar) and keep it reliable through tool changes and daily operation
- Build the sensor data pipeline: capture, streaming, compression and logging at rate, delivered to the world model, teleoperation and robot learning
- Monitor sensor health and detect drift before it affects a task
WORLD MODEL
- Design the world model: an element graph keyed to BIM, poses with uncertainty, and the state of every element (planned, placed, fastened, verified, failed)
- Register the BIM to the as-built, to tool tolerance, for panels in the factory and for rooms on site
- Build sensor fusion and localization so mobile robots know where they are relative to the building, not just a map
- Keep element state current from perception and from the verification results of every primitive
- Own the world-model interface that the planner, primitives and teaching pipeline use, designed so more than one robot can share it
PERCEPTION
- Set the direction for a generalized perception model: one shared model for geometry and categories that learns new features from a few examples
- Build measurement for material state: cable and tape position, mud and surface flatness, foam depth, fastener seating
- Build object detection, segmentation and 6-DoF pose estimation for parts, tools and fasteners in cluttered, confined and poorly lit spaces
- Set accuracy targets tied to task success, and build the benchmarks that measure them
- Deploy perception at the edge within a defined latency budget
FOUNDATION AND SKILL PIPELINE
- Co-own the foundation interfaces with the robot learning and agentic planning principals, and own the world-model interface
- Add the features and sensing each new trade needs as it moves through the skill pipeline
- Measure success by how fast a new trade can be taught
- Decide with the robot learning principal what data is collected and how failures are labelled
TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP
- Set sensing and perception architecture across both robot families
- Mentor perception and sensing engineers
- Make the system something engineers can teach new trades with, without you in the loop
- Stay hands-on: write production code and test on real robots every week
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
SENSING AND WORLD MODELING
- 5+ years building perception, sensing or state estimation for physical robots or autonomous systems, with systems deployed in production
- Architected a multi-sensor suite end to end: selection, placement, synchronization, calibration and the data pipeline
- Deep expertise in 3D vision and geometry: multi-view geometry, point cloud registration, SLAM and sensor fusion across cameras, lidar and IMU
- Built a world or scene representation that planning or control consumed, not only detectors
- Deep learning for perception in PyTorch, from dataset to deployed model
ENGINEERING AND LEADERSHIP
- Strong C++ and Python
- Experience with ROS2, Linux, Docker and CI/CD workflows
- A record of setting technical direction across teams and mentoring senior engineers
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- MS or PhD in Robotics, Computer Vision, Computer Science or a related field
- Scan-to-CAD or scan-to-BIM comparison, as-built verification or digital twins
- World modeling, mapping or localization on an autonomous vehicle or field robotics team
- Perception for manipulation, including deformable objects or surface measurement
- Vision foundation models such as SAM, DINOv2 or FoundationPose
- Observation spaces for imitation learning or vision-language-action policies
- Sensor data for robot learning datasets, such as MCAP or rosbag
- Hardware time sync (PTP, hardware triggers), CUDA, TensorRT and edge deployment on NVIDIA Jetson
- Simulation and synthetic data with Isaac Sim, MuJoCo or similar
- A shared world model across multiple robots
- Background in construction, manufacturing or industrial automation
WHY JOIN LIGHTSPEED
- Build the senses and the world model of robots that are addressing the housing crisis
- Own sensing end to end, from sensor selection to the world model every robot reads
- Work on rare real-world problems: as-built registration at tool tolerance, deformable materials, dusty and confined sites, factory and field robots on one stack
- Hands-on culture with direct access to robots, sensors and manufacturing environments
- Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits
EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP
This position is at-will, meaning either you or the Company may terminate employment at any time, with or without cause or notice.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
LightSpeed Build Technologies is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences.
