---
title: 'Real-Time Robotics Perception Engineer at Path Robotics'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/real-time-robotics-perception-engineer-path-robotics-columbus-b5n9gn78hs04'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Real-Time Robotics Perception Engineer at Path Robotics

- **Company:** Path Robotics
- **Location:** Columbus, OH
- **Posted:** 2026-08-05
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://boards.greenhouse.io/pathrobotics/jobs/8682757002?gh_jid=8682757002

## Job description

Build the Path Forward

At Path Robotics, we’re attacking a trillion dollar opportunity - doing things that have never been done before to support an industry hurting from a lack of skilled labor. Big, hard problems are what Path tackles every day, and our people are our greatest asset to get that job done. Our intelligent, hardworking team of people do the impossible every single day, yet remain incredibly kind, humble, and always ready to support one another.

We are building an elite robotics and perception team, and we are looking for an exceptional hands-on Perception Engineer to own the vision a real-time control loop closes on.

## What you'll do

- The real-time perception pipeline, end to end — sensing through extraction and geometry to the output another engineer's control loop acts on, at rate, on embedded hardware, inside a budget you set and measure.
- Robustness where the signal is being actively degraded. Getting a reliable measurement out of imagery that something is deliberately ruining is the hardest part of the job and the part that decides whether the whole system works.
- Making the estimate honest about its own failure. A confident wrong answer is the most dangerous thing this role can produce, because the loop will act on it. We want estimates that know when they are wrong and say so early enough to matter.
- Geometric estimation against a known model — recovering where things are, well enough to work against, from partial and imperfect data, and knowing when the geometry does not actually support the answer you just produced.
- Choosing and proving the instruments. You will evaluate sensing options, run the experiments that settle them, and defend the choice with numbers. This is a real part of the role, not an occasional errand.
- Setting the technical direction as the perception work grows toward learned methods.

## Who You Are

- You have closed a real-time loop on what a camera saw, on real hardware, and something physical moved in response. You can state its rate, its measured end-to-end latency, and how you measured it — not the model's inference time, the whole chain.
- First-principles depth in classical vision and 3-D geometry — camera geometry, triangulation, registration and where it fails, calibration, and propagating error properly rather than quoting a single number.
- Real-time segmentation or feature extraction on degraded imagery, deployed rather than benchmarked, and an understanding of why thin and low-contrast structures break the standard metrics and losses.
- Strong, modern, production C++, and ROS 2.
- GPU-accelerated inference on embedded hardware under a hard per-frame budget — and the habit of measuring the tail rather than the mean.
- A physical accuracy claim you can defend — measured against something independent of the system that produced it, with bias reported separately from repeatability.

## Why You'll Love It Here

- Daily free lunch to keep you fueled and connected with the team
- Flexible PTO so you can take the time you need, when you need it
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
- 6 weeks fully paid parental leave, plus an additional 6–8 weeks for birthing parents (12–14 weeks total)
- 401(k) retirement plan through Empower
- Generous employee referral bonuses—help us grow our team!

## Who We Are

At Path Robotics we love coming to work to solve interesting and tough challenges but also because our ideas are welcomed and valued. We encourage unique thinking and are dedicated to creating a diverse and inclusive environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application process or any part of the hiring process, please contact HR@path-robotics.com. We are committed to providing equal access and will work with qualified individuals to ensure a fair and accessible hiring experience. We will respond to your request within 48 hours.

## About Path Robotics

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Path Robotics builds physical AI systems that enable autonomous robotic welding for heavy industries, addressing the critical skilled labor shortage in manufacturing.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series D, $271M total funding)
- **Headquarters**: Columbus, Ohio, United States
- **Founded**: 2014
- **Founders**: Andy Lonsberry (CEO) and Alex Lonsberry (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Industrial robotics, AI-powered manufacturing automation, heavy fabrication
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise — specifically heavy industry, defense, utility & energy, data center construction, and general manufacturing
- **Mission**: Create real value for customers while rebuilding the backbone of American industry by helping manufacturers navigate the skilled labor shortage.

## Products & Services
- **Intelligent Welding Cells**: Fixed robotic cells that use AI and computer vision to see, understand, and adapt to part variations in real-time, enabling autonomous welding without precision fixturing.
- **Obsidian™ AI**: A foundational AI model for welding, trained on tens of millions of welded inches, enabling real-time adaptation for high-quality welds across part-to-part variations.
- **JobBuilder**: A web-based software application launched at FABTECH 2024 that simplifies part programming, reducing the setup bottleneck and expanding the addressable market to fabricators without specialized robotics staff.
- **Path Foundry (RaaS)**: A Robotics-as-a-Service model where Path owns and operates the welding cells, charging customers for welding capacity with $0 CapEx, targeting a 30% lower cost and 4x productivity improvement.
- **Rove**: A mobile welding system mounted on a quadruped platform (announced April 2026), extending adaptive welding capabilities beyond fixed-cell applications.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: $271M total funding raised (Series D, last raised ~2 years ago)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly named in available sources; the company has a Board of Directors and leadership team including a Chief Revenue Officer (Heather Carroll) and EVP of Global Operations (Mike Renn).
- **Growth Signals**: 198 employees as of March 2026; launched Path Foundry RaaS model in October 2024; launched JobBuilder at FABTECH 2024; announced Rove mobile welding system in April 2026; serves 4 key industries (Defense, Data Centers, Utility & Energy, Heavy Industry); addresses a forecasted 600k welder shortage by 2030.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Perception-driven fit-up**: The core differentiator is the ability to recognize part geometry, compensate for dimensional variation, and execute a weld without precision fixturing — a capability traditional robotic welding lacks, which requires tight part consistency.
- **Obsidian™ foundational AI model**: A purpose-built, first-of-its-kind AI model for welding trained on tens of millions of welded inches, enabling continuous learning and real-time adaptation.
- **RaaS model (Path Foundry)**: Eliminates upfront CapEx for customers, lowering adoption barriers for mid-market fabricators who cannot justify six- or seven-figure capital commitments.
- **End-to-end autonomy**: The system handles pick, fit-up, and weld in a single automated flow, with 24/7 mission control support, targeting 4x productivity improvement.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the RaaS model**: Path Foundry is the primary go-to-market strategy, requiring the company to manage fleet maintenance, logistics, service-level guarantees, and asset utilization across a distributed installed base.
- **Expanding addressable geometry**: The Rove mobile platform announcement signals a push beyond fixed-cell applications into more varied and mobile welding environments.
- **Defense and critical infrastructure**: The company is actively targeting defense (shipyards, arsenals), data center construction, and utility/energy sectors as key growth verticals.
- **Reducing programming friction**: JobBuilder aims to lower the barrier to adoption for fabricators without specialized robotics staff, expanding the total addressable market.

## Why Work Here
- **Impactful mission**: The company directly addresses a critical national problem — a forecasted 600,000 welder shortage by 2030 — by building technology that keeps American manufacturing competitive.
- **Cutting-edge technology**: Work at the intersection of AI, machine learning, computer vision, and robotics, building a foundational AI model (Obsidian) trained on tens of millions of welded inches.
- **Collaborative culture**: The company emphasizes "People + Robots Together" and states that "Our people are our competitive advantage," with a focus on creating real customer value.
- **Growth trajectory**: With $271M in funding, 198 employees, and a pivot to a RaaS model, the company is in a high-growth phase with significant runway.
- **Leadership**: Founded and led by brothers Andy Lonsberry (CEO) and Alex Lonsberry (CTO), who have scaled the company from a university basement to a leading physical-AI company.
- **Work environment**: Based in Columbus, Ohio, with a focus on collaborative, passionate teams working on cutting-edge machine learning and impactful real-world problems. The careers page highlights "Impactful," "Collaborative," "AI-Powered," and "Cutting-edge machine learning" as core themes.

## Sources
1. [path-robotics.com](https://www.path-robotics.com/)
2. [path-robotics.com/careers](https://www.path-robotics.com/careers)
3. [path-robotics.com/about](https://www.path-robotics.com/about)
4. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/path-robotics)
5. [robotics.press](https://robotics.press/news/path-robotics-company-profile/)

## Other roles at Path Robotics

- [Welding Engineer - NAVSEA Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/welding-engineer-navsea-specialist-path-robotics-los-angeles-cbdj2hzf6kj8) — Los Angeles, CA
- [IT Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/it-systems-engineer-path-robotics-columbus-2jds6z5qcwj1) — Columbus, OH
- [Deployment Engineering Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/deployment-engineering-manager-path-robotics-columbus-fm00qbc71j1h) — Columbus, OH
- [Senior Graphic Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-graphic-designer-path-robotics-columbus-w7nq8bq5bqgn) — Columbus, OH
- [Photographer / Videographer](https://feeny.ai/job/photographer-videographer-path-robotics-columbus-y13k6v02w30m) — Columbus, OH
- [Global Supply Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/global-supply-manager-path-robotics-columbus-fgvm5pb3319h) — Columbus, OH
- [Field Installation Supervisor](https://feeny.ai/job/field-installation-supervisor-path-robotics-columbus-5tn8bqyr1d89) — Columbus, OH
- [Software Engineer, Fleet Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-fleet-platform-path-robotics-columbus-4f2ybr8k5f77) — Columbus, OH
- [Creative Content Producer](https://feeny.ai/job/creative-content-producer-path-robotics-columbus-qrp1yp646ge7) — Columbus, OH
- [Staff Robotics Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-robotics-software-engineer-path-robotics-columbus-hzbv9fwy48nh) — Columbus, OH