Staff Platform Software Engineer

Staff Platform Software Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA – Hybrid -In Office 3 Days/Week

About Point One Navigation

Point One Navigation is on a mission to bridge the digital and physical worlds through precision location. Our RTK Corrections Network and FusionEngine™ software deliver centimeter-level accuracy and high-confidence positioning for vehicles, robots, drones, and devices across industries. We're API-first, developer-focused, and pushing the boundaries of autonomy and automation.

The Role

Point One's FusionEngine is the heart of our navigation products — powerful and precise, flexible across sensor types and models, and scalable from large Linux systems down to real-time, bare-metal devices. Our team owns all of it: the core engine, the low-level platform support code beneath it, our cloud and local regression/HITL testing systems, and the in-vehicle and test-rig hardware integration that keeps them running.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll own the architecture and design of large parts of this system: turning high-level goals into solid designs, clean APIs, real test plans, and realistic schedules, then executing with minimal oversight.

Success Looks Like

• You take a big-picture goal from a conversation and turn it into a concrete design — architecture, APIs, test plan, schedule — with little back-and-forth, then deliver a correct solution without close supervision.
• Core platform infrastructure (messaging/transport, profiling, debugging tooling, build toolchains) is well-architected and reliable across both embedded and Linux targets.
• Real-time software you write or review runs reliably on bare-metal embedded devices and Linux-based devices alike, and you're comfortable installing, wiring, and debugging that hardware in vehicles and HITL rigs when it breaks.
• Our regression, HITL, and post-processing systems get more capable and reliable because of your involvement.
• (BONUS)You understand navigation/sensor fusion concepts well enough to help debug and develop directly in the core navigation engine, and you're eager to grow deeper into algorithm design over time.

Immediate Areas of Focus

Own Software Architecture and Design

• Turn high-level goals into concrete designs: architecture, module boundaries, clean APIs, test plans, schedules.
• Drive designs end-to-end with minimal hand-holding once approach is agreed on.
• Make sound tradeoffs under real-world constraints — timing, reliability, maintainability, schedule.
• Raise the bar on other engineers' designs and code.

Build Platform Infrastructure and Tooling

• Design and evolve core platform services — messaging/transport frameworks, profiling and observability tooling, debugging and crash-analysis infrastructure, build/toolchain systems — with abstractions that scale from embedded to Linux.
• Add support for new sensors, and diagnose and mitigate issues with sensors and other real-time hardware.
• Generalize and improve existing application and platform infrastructure — for example, abstracting components so pieces can be reused on embedded targets without pulling in "big platform" assumptions (filesystem access, large memory footprint, etc.) that don't fit them.
• Extend and maintain existing platform infrastructure, and design new infrastructure as the platform's needs grow.
• Make infrastructure decisions that hold up across a growing set of hardware targets and deployment environments.

Build and Debug Real-Time Systems

• Install, wire, and manage hardware in vehicles and HITL test rigs; debug it when it breaks (gdb, JTAG, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes as needed).

Strengthen Testing, HITL, and Post-Processing Infrastructure

• Help design and maintain regression testing, HITL testing, and post-processing systems — locally managed, on remote-managed hardware, or in the cloud.
• Treat test coverage and infrastructure reliability as first-class engineering responsibilities.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software development, including real ownership of architecture for a significant system or product area.
• Demonstrated ability to turn ambiguous goals into solid designs — architecture, APIs, test plans, schedules — and deliver against them with minimal oversight. - Expert-level modern C++ (C++20 or later), with experience across more than one kind of platform (e.g., embedded + Linux, or device + server).
• Experience deploying cross-domain systems — integrating hardware and software into a working, reliable product, not just writing code for hardware someone else already brought up and deployed. - Comfortable getting hands-on with real-time or hardware-adjacent debugging, even if not your primary specialty.
• Demonstrate responsible use of modern AI tooling to improve speed and thoroughness, while maintaining the quality of the code and product.
• Strong Python experience for tooling, automation, and scripting. - Experience designing and owning test/verification strategy for complex systems.
• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent experience.

Bonus Points For

• Deep embedded experience: board bring-up, driver development, RTOSes, bare-metal, UART/SPI/I2C/CAN.
• Experience building platform tooling: profiling/observability systems, crash/debugging tooling, cross-compiler toolchains.
• Experience with GNSS, inertial navigation, computer vision, LIDAR, sensor fusion, estimation, or robotics — enough to work directly in that code and with the R&D team, with an eagerness to grow into algorithm design over time.
• Experience with scalable test or data infrastructure, whether cloud-based, on-prem, or remote-managed hardware.
• Safety-critical or highly-available systems background (automotive, robotics, aerospace)

Our Cultural Foundation

At Point One, our cultural and operating design is built around one guiding principle: we must move with extreme speed and efficiency of effort to stay in a leadership position.

This environment gives people a high level of autonomy and the ability to make a real impact. It also challenges every team member to grow — both professionally and personally. Because we focus on promoting from within rather than relying on external hiring, the opportunities for advancement are tremendous for those who seek them.

That said, growth only comes from delivering in the present. What matters most is the job to be done today, not the job you want tomorrow. When we all focus on today’s outcomes with excellence, the path to greater responsibility and growth naturally follows.

We think about our culture in two dimensions:

How We Show Up Every Day

These are the behaviors we expect every team member to bring to work — the foundation of being a consummate, high-output teammate:

• Trust / Assume Best Intent — Trust allows us to move fast. When we start from trust, we spend no time second-guessing or looking for ulterior motives and thus focus all our energy on acting.
• High Output, Action Oriented — Our default posture is “yes.” We bias toward action and deliver results quickly, knowing that speed and efficiency compound into impact as we unblock others around us.
• Divine Discontent — We’re never satisfied with the status quo and are self-motivated to improve ourselves, our work, and our company. We actively seek feedback in real-time to shorten improvement cycles.
• No Ego, One Team — Collaboration without ego creates leverage. When we win as one team, we eliminate friction and move faster together.
• Self Accountability — Taking ownership is the straightest line to learning, self-improvement, and correcting our course of action. And blaming others around us is a fast path to destroying trust.

Operating Principles

These are the systems and norms that amplify speed and efficiency at the company level:

• Edge Innovation — We bias toward action over approval. Experiment, decide, and move — failure is just a step toward faster learning.
• No Hierarchies — We practice self-prioritization and go direct to the source. Flattening layers reduces drag and maximizes autonomy.
• Customer Experience First — We optimize for the end-to-end customer outcome, not functional or departmental efficiency. This focus cuts waste, aligns priorities, and ensures we spend effort where it matters most.

If this role sounds like a fit, we’d love to hear from you. Apply below and join us in shaping the future of precise location.