Hardware Operations Engineer - Robotics, Real-World Test Lab

Location: San Francisco, CA Workplace: Hybrid About Niantic Spatial AI has learned from almost everything online, but it still struggles with the physical world, where 99.5% of economic activity happens. It doesn’t know where things are, how spaces fit together, or what changes over time. That’s one of the biggest unsolved problems in AI, and it’s the one we’re solving at Niantic Spatial. We build spatial AI models and services so people and machines can reason, learn and act safely in the physical world. We turn camera imagery, video, sensor data and archives into accurate, AI-readable representations of real places that robots can train in and machines can use to know exactly where they are. In physical AI, mistakes have real consequences. That’s why we build AI grounded in measured reality, not guesswork, so the people and machines relying on it can trust it to get things right. Our team built some of the world’s most widely used maps. Now we’re building something bigger: a living, measured record of the real world that machines can query, learn from and use to understand how places change over time. If you want to help AI understand the world we actually live in, come build with us. About the Real-World Test Lab (RWTL) Physical AI doesn't get graded on a leaderboard. It gets graded on a factory floor at shift change, in a substation with no GPS, on a site where the lighting is wrong and the stakes are real. The Real-World Test Lab closes the gap between the benchmark and the field. We bring the customer's world inside our walls — their devices, their environments, their hardest conditions, and their definition of success — and make it the bar every release has to clear. As Niantic Spatial's first and most demanding customer, we push our reconstruction, localization, and spatial understanding to their limits, find where they shine and where they break, and turn that into evidence that shapes what we build next. It's a new team at the frontier of physical AI, and you'll help invent how the job is done. About the Role We're hiring a Hardware Operations Engineer with a robotics specialism, reporting to the Director of the Real-World Test Lab, to own the physical layer of our evidence. You'll manage our fleet of capture devices and robots, engineer the test environments and the instrumentation inside them, support the captures our data programs depend on, and run physical test sessions, including the real-robot side of our sim-to-real work. A physical run only counts as evidence if the hardware is characterized, the environment is controlled, the ground truth is trustworthy, and someone can reproduce the run months later. You'll build what makes that possible: fixtures, ground-truth references, calibration and data-offload tooling, and the integrations that feed physical runs into the same automated evaluation system as everything else. You engineer the conditions, not just the setup. When a physical result didn't match expectations, you've worked out whether the hardware, calibration, environment, or system under test was responsible. Then you built the rig, reference, or logging that kept the question from coming back. You know an uninstrumented physical test is an anecdote, and in the Lab you'll be the person who can say with authority whether a strange result is real. What Success Looks Like - 30 days: Fleet inventory and characterization baseline complete, safe operating procedures defined for current spaces, and first instrumentation gaps identified. - 60 days: First physical robot run executed with ground-truth instrumentation, documented well enough to repeat, with results in the Lab's evaluation system. - 90 days: Test environments in regular use with controlled, documented conditions; capture support running smoothly with our data acquisition team; and the physical side of sim-to-real running on a standing instrumented protocol. What You'll Do - Own and Characterize the Fleet - Manage our capture devices, sensors, and robots end to end: inventory, calibration, firmware, maintenance, logistics, and spares. Characterize what each platform can and cannot do, so a device's limits are a known quantity rather than a surprise inside a result. - Engineer the Physical Test Environments - Design, build, and operate the spaces we test in, covering layout, lighting control, markers, obstacle configurations, and survey-grade ground truth references, across our office, rented or workplace-services-supported space, and partner or customer sites. Make each environment a controlled variable rather than an improvisation. - Build the Instrumentation - Create the rigs, mounts, references, and measurement setups that turn a physical run into quantitative data: trajectory ground truth, positional accuracy references, timing and synchronization across sensors, and automated condition logging. - Integrate Physical Runs Into the Evaluation System - Work with the AI Automation Engineer so physical results flow into the same scorecards and comparisons as software-only evaluations, through automated data offload, run metadata, and structured condition capture rather than a spreadsheet and a folder of files. - Run the Physical Test Sessions - Execute robot runs and device-in-the-loop tests: robot bring-up, teleoperation, scripted trials, and the repetition that makes a result statistically meaningful rather than anecdotal. - Own the Physical Half of Sim-to-Real - When a scenario has been evaluated in simulation, engineer and execute its physical counterpart so the comparison is valid, matching environment, route, lighting, sensor configuration, and robot setup, and instrumenting the run so divergence is explainable rather than mysterious. - Own Safety - Define and maintain safe operating procedures for robots and powered equipment in our test spaces, and coordinate with workplace services, IT, Legal, and site owners on access and safety requirements. - Automate Your Own Work - Script the repetitive parts, including configuration, calibration checks, data offload, and condition logging, so setup time falls and a colleague can run a session without you. What You'll Bring - Hands-on engineering experience with robotic hardware, covering bring-up, integration, teleoperation, troubleshooting, and maintenance. Mobile or wheeled platforms preferred. - Built test rigs, fixtures, or instrumentation that produced quantitative measurements of a physical system's behavior. - Designed and run structured physical experiments, including ground truth methodology, and documented conditions rigorously enough for someone else to reproduce them. - Worked with sensor calibration, multi-sensor synchronization, and coordinate frame conventions, and understand how errors in each propagate into a result. - Strong Python and command-line proficiency, with a track record of automating hardware configuration, data offload, or test execution. - Managed hardware fleets operationally: inventory, firmware, calibration schedules, logistics, and repair coordination. - Practical safety experience operating powered equipment or robots around people. - A bachelor's degree in a relevant field, or equivalent experience. Nice to Have - Worked with ROS or ROS 2, including writing nodes or integrating sensor drivers. - Operated NVIDIA Isaac Sim or Isaac Lab as a user, running scenarios someone else authored. - Worked with professional capture hardware such as terrestrial laser scanners, NavVis or Leica systems, LiDAR, 360 cameras, or drones. - Established survey-grade or motion-capture ground truth for localization or navigation evaluation. - Supported photogrammetry, Gaussian splat, or 3D reconstruction capture workflows. - Run test operations at customer or partner sites, with the coordination and discretion that requires. Competencies - Engineering judgment about physical systems. You reason about error sources: calibration drift, timing offsets, mounting rigidity, lighting variation, floor surface. When results disagree, you form a hypothesis and design the measurement that settles it. - Hands-on and unfazed. You'd rather be in the space with the robot than reading about it. Cables, mounts, batteries, firmware, and a session that starts at 7am are all part of the job. - Meticulous about conditions. You instrument rather than remember. You know the value of a physical test lives in how precisely its conditions were captured. - Safety-minded without being slow. You take real responsibility for operating robots around people, and you build procedures where the safe path is also the fast path. - Builds for other people. Your fixtures, scripts, and procedures get used by colleagues without you in the room. - Comfortable in an unfinished environment. Much of this does not exist yet. You'll be selecting equipment, designing the first rigs, and defining how a space gets configured, with support but without a playbook. Compensation & Benefits Base salary range of $142,200 to $193,000. Compensation also includes an annual bonus, equity, and a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k), and more. Location & Work Model This role is based in our San Francisco office, with three days per week in office. Inclusive Application We know the strongest candidates don't always tick every box. If you're excited about this role and believe you could do it well, we encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't match every qualification listed - you may be exactly who we're looking for. Equal Opportunity Niantic Spatial is an equal opportunity employer. Individuals seeking employment at Niantic Spatial are considered without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), marital status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected category under applicable laws. Niantic Spatial will also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in accordance with applicable laws. Please contact your recruiter if you want to request an accommodation for the job application or interview process. Candidate Privacy I understand that by submitting my job application, the information I provide as part of that application will be used in accordance with Niantic Spatial's Privacy Notice for Job Applicants and Candidates https://www.nianticspatial.com/applicant-privacy-notice.