layiq

/la·yiq/adjective

worthy; deserving; fitting; suitable.

A role, opportunity, or path that merits attention, time, and pursuit.

Hardware Operations Engineer - Robotics, Real-World Test Lab at Niantic Spatial | LAYIQ

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.

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.

Hardware Operations Engineer - Robotics, Real-World Test Lab

Employer job description

About Niantic Spatial

About the Real-World Test Lab (RWTL)

About the Role

What Success Looks Like

What You'll Do

What You'll Bring

Compensation & Benefits

Equal opportunity and accommodations

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