Robotics Software Intern

Role Overview

As a Robotics Engineering Intern at PickCell Robotics, you will work on the software and algorithms that enable autonomous robots to move reliably, efficiently, and safely inside high-throughput robotic fulfillment systems. You will research, develop, simulate, and test core robotic capabilities including path planning, trajectory planning, navigation, localization, motion control, and system-level controls.

Responsibilities

• Develop and improve ROS 2-based autonomous navigation systems
• Implement and tune global and local path-planning algorithms
• Develop trajectory generation and trajectory tracking methods for mobile robots
• Work extensively with the ROS 2 Nav2 stack, including planners, controllers, costmaps, behavior trees, and recovery behaviors
• Design and tune robot motion-control systems for accurate and stable navigation
• Work on velocity, acceleration, steering, and motion constraints for real robotic platforms
• Integrate localization, mapping, obstacle detection, and navigation modules
• Develop algorithms for reliable navigation in dense and dynamic warehouse environments
• Debug issues involving TF transforms, odometry, localization, planners, controllers, and robot hardware
• Build and validate robotics functionality in simulation using tools such as Gazebo or NVIDIA Isaac Sim
• Test algorithms on real robots and analyze system behavior using ROS bags, logs, and telemetry
• Optimize navigation performance for reliability, repeatability, and cycle time
• Collaborate with mechanical, electrical, embedded, and robotics engineers to develop complete autonomous systems

Requirements

• Final-year undergraduate student, recent graduate, postgraduate student, or engineer with up to 1 year of relevant experience
• Strong programming fundamentals in C++ and Python, with hands-on experience developing robotics software
• Practical experience with ROS 2, including nodes, topics, services, actions, launch files, TF/TF2, and debugging tools
• Familiarity with the Nav2 navigation stack, including planners, controllers, costmaps, behavior trees, and recovery behaviors
• Strong understanding of path planning, trajectory planning, trajectory tracking, mobile robot kinematics, and feedback control systems
• Experience with localization, odometry, coordinate frames, and sensors such as LiDAR, wheel encoders, IMUs, or depth cameras
• Ability to develop and debug robotics systems in Linux using tools such as RViz, rosbag, rqt, Git, and command-line ROS utilities
• Familiarity with simulation environments such as Gazebo, Isaac Sim, or Webots
• Experience building, testing, or deploying autonomous mobile robots, preferably with differential-drive, Ackermann, omnidirectional, or similar platforms
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ownership and curiosity to test, debug, iterate, and deliver reliable robotics software on real hardware

Skills

• ROS 2
• C++
• Python
• Gazebo
• Linux