Perception Machine Learning Engineer

Saildrone is hiring a Perception Machine Learning Engineer for an onsite role in Alameda, CA. In this position, you will build and deploy machine learning-based perception capabilities for autonomous vehicles using real-world vehicle data. You will work end-to-end across model development, evaluation, failure analysis, and production integration, helping turn experimentation into reliable perception performance.

Compensation: USD 144,500 - 322,742 per year.

What you’ll bring

• Strong Python programming skills.
• Hands-on experience developing computer vision and/or machine learning systems.
• Strong experience with PyTorch or a comparable ML framework.
• Solid understanding of computer vision fundamentals and how models perform on real-world visual data.
• Experience evaluating models with quantitative metrics and conducting experimental analysis.
• Experience bringing ML or computer vision systems into production.

Perception impact you’ll own

• Develop machine-learning-based perception systems for autonomous vehicles.
• Train, evaluate, and improve computer vision models using real-world sensor data.
• Create data and experimentation workflows to identify failure modes and improve model performance.
• Build perception capabilities spanning tasks such as detection, classification, segmentation, depth estimation, or scene understanding.
• Analyze vehicle data and model failures to identify weaknesses and drive improvements.
• Integrate models into production perception systems.
• Transfer new machine learning techniques from experimentation into deployed systems.

Tools and technologies

• Python
• PyTorch
• C++
• ONNX
• TensorRT
• CUDA

Benefits

• Generous Time Off: Competitive Paid Time Off (PTO) accrual, a robust annual holiday schedule, and paid sick leave.
• Comprehensive Health Coverage: Premium, multi-tier Medical, Dental, and Vision plans with significant company contributions for employees and dependents.
• Shared Ownership in the Mission: Equity grants.
• Retirement Savings: Access to a 401(k) plan with flexible pre-tax and Roth payroll contribution options.
• Investment in Your Growth: Annual professional development reimbursement program.
• Relocation Support: Relocation assistance for eligible roles.

Nice to have

• C++ experience for production perception systems.
• Robotics, autonomous vehicle, aerospace, or defense experience.
• Edge or embedded ML deployment experience.
• Sensor fusion, 3D perception, or multimodal perception experience.
• ONNX, TensorRT, CUDA, or other inference optimization experience.