Perception Machine Learning Engineer

Saildrone is seeking a Perception Machine Learning Engineer to develop and deploy machine learning-based perception capabilities for autonomous vehicles using real-world vehicle data. This role covers the full lifecycle from model development and evaluation to production deployment for computer vision perception tasks.

Onsite Location

Alameda, CA (onsite)

Compensation

USD 144,500 - 322,742 per year

Responsibilities

• 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.
• Develop perception capabilities for 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.

Required Qualifications

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

Technologies

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

Benefits

• Generous Time Off: Competitive Paid Time Off (PTO) accrual plus 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) retirement 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.
• Sensor fusion, 3D perception, or multimodal perception.
• ONNX, TensorRT, CUDA, or other inference optimization experience.