SLAM Research Engineer / Scientist

About the role

World Labs is seeking a SLAM Specialist to design, implement, and advance state‑of‑the‑art simultaneous localization and mapping systems. This research‑driven position sits at the intersection of robotics, computer vision, and probabilistic inference, contributing directly to the core world‑modeling stack.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement modern SLAM pipelines for visual, visual‑inertial, lidar, or multi‑sensor setups.
• Develop robust localization, map management, loop‑closure, and global optimization components.
• Research and prototype hybrid or learning‑based SLAM approaches that blend classical geometry with machine learning.
• Build scalable state‑estimation frameworks using factor‑graph optimization, filtering, and smoothing.
• Create sensor‑fusion strategies integrating cameras, IMUs, depth sensors, and lidar.
• Analyze failure modes in real‑world deployments and devise principled solutions.
• Establish evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, and metrics for accuracy, robustness, and performance.
• Optimize SLAM pipelines for real‑time constraints, memory usage, and compute efficiency.
• Collaborate with reconstruction, simulation, and infrastructure teams to ensure seamless integration with downstream pipelines.

Required profile

• Strong research background in SLAM, robotics, or computer vision.
• Experience with both classical and learning‑based SLAM techniques.
• Proven ability to translate research ideas into production‑ready systems.
• Excellent problem‑solving skills for complex, dynamic environments.

Required skills

• SLAM (visual, visual‑inertial, lidar)
• Sensor fusion (cameras, IMUs, depth sensors, lidar)
• State estimation, factor‑graph optimization, filtering, smoothing
• Pose estimation, map management, loop closure, global optimization
• Learning‑based or hybrid SLAM approaches
• Real‑time performance optimization