Principal Software Engineer, Perception
Principal Software Engineer, Perception The company is a maritime defense company with a relentless passion for performance. Built to operate in the world's harshest environments, the company's autonomous systems deliver payload effects and persistent, wide-area intelligence, enabling informed decisions across the spectrum of defense missions. Harnessing AI, advanced sensor suites, and renewable power for unmatched endurance at sea, the company delivers superior multi-domain impact—from power projection to persistent ISR to real-time threat detection and tracking—while reducing cost and risk. With proven operational success across the world's oceans, the company is advancing the frontier of autonomous maritime operations to give decision-makers and warfighters the enduring advantage to outpace adversaries today and build tomorrow's most decisive capabilities. We need a Principal-level perception engineer with 8+ years of experience deploying perception systems on autonomous vehicles, robots, aerospace, or defense platforms. You should have deep expertise in sensor fusion, probabilistic estimation, and uncertainty modeling, with a proven track record of translating research-grade algorithms into reliable production systems running on constrained edge compute. Bonus points if you have experience with maritime or ocean-based autonomy, multiple sensor modalities (radar, camera, infrared), or have led perception architecture across multiple generations of an autonomous platform.
What you'll do:
Define the architecture and technical direction for the company's entire perception stack, including sensor fusion, localization, tracking, mapping, and uncertainty estimation Take ownership of the hardest perception problems — integrating heterogeneous sensors (radar, cameras, novel maritime-specific modalities) into a coherent, reliable information stream for downstream autonomy Work closely with the autonomy, navigation, and applied ML teams to ensure perception outputs drive safe and effective vehicle behavior in complex ocean environments Translate state-of-the-art research and algorithms into robust production capabilities within real-world constraints on sensors, compute (Nvidia Jetson SOC), latency, and harsh environmental conditions Lead technical direction for senior and staff engineers through architecture decisions, technical reviews, and hands-on problem solving — upleveling and upskilling the current perception team Guide data labeling strategies, ground truth dataset construction, and evaluation frameworks to continuously improve perception system performance Help expand the perception team over time, serving as a voice of technical leadership and authority in hiring and mentorship