Perception Engineer
- Compensation
- $110K–$145K / yr
- Location
- Austin
- Work setup
- Onsite
- Seniority
- Not specified
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 6+ years
- Category
- Not specified
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 6+ years of professional experience in computer vision or machine learning, including production deployment on edge hardware.
- Demonstrated experience shipping a detection or tracking system under real-world latency, small-object, or adversarial constraints.
- Strong engineering skills beyond modeling, including experience with PyTorch or JAX through to deployed, optimized inference.
- Proficiency in Python for model development and C++ or Rust for deployed inference.
- U.S. citizenship and ability to pass a background check.
Nice to have
- Experience working with infrared (IR), thermal, or multi-spectrum camera systems.
- TensorRT and NVIDIA Jetson deployment experience at production scale.
- Multi-object tracking under challenging conditions.
- Multi-modal sensor fusion experience (EO/IR, radar, acoustic).
- Synthetic data generation and sim-to-real methodologies.
- Prior experience in defense or other safety-critical computer vision applications.
- Active security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one.
Full description
Location: Onsite — Austin, TX
Employment Type: Direct Hire, Full‑Time
Job Title: Perception Engineer
About 9 Mothers
The modern battlefield has changed. Cheap, autonomous suicide drones have turned the tactical advantage upside down, and the world is looking for a solution. At 9 Mothers, we aren’t just "innovating"—we are building the shield.
Backed by top-tier investors, we develop AI powered machines designed to intercept and neutralize Group 1/sUAS threats in real-time. Our flagship product is a low-power, counter-drone system built for the edge—on vehicles, at bases, or in a soldier's pack.
Why 9 Mothers?
While others build for "awareness" or "long-term research," we build for the immediate survival of those in harm’s way. We are a team of hackers, engineers, and mission-driven builders who value field-ready capability over polished slide decks. If you want to see your code or hardware in the field next month—not next year—this is your playground.
Position Summary
9 Mothers is seeking a Perception Engineer to own the computer vision and machine learning stack that powers target detection, classification, and tracking in our counter-sUAS systems. The Perception Lead is responsible for the research, development, and deployment of the perception pipeline that enables EDDA to engage aerial threats in real time. This is a senior individual contributor position.
Essential Duties
- Own the visual perception pipeline end-to-end, including detection, classification, and tracking of sUAS targets in real time.
- Design and train machine learning models that meet latency and accuracy requirements for edge deployment on Jetson-class hardware.
- Architect and maintain the dataset and simulation pipeline, including data collection, labeling, curation, augmentation, synthetic data generation, and closed-loop retraining based on field performance.
- Optimize inference performance on Jetson platforms, including model pruning, quantization, TensorRT integration, and custom kernel development as required.
- Establish the model evaluation framework and metrics used to assess perception performance under operational conditions.
- Deliver target state information (position, velocity, identity, uncertainty) to the controls subsystem.
- Collaborate with the hardware team on camera, optics, and sensor selection.
Requirements
- 6+ years of professional experience in computer vision or machine learning, including production deployment on edge hardware.