Head of Robotic Perception & Vision Engineering

ATI; Woburn; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

ATI is seeking a Lead Perception Engineer to lead a team addressing robotics perception challenges using classical and ML approaches. You will guide end-to-end development from concept to field deployment, selecting sensors and building production-grade perception pipelines.

The role requires hands-on debugging, strong Python/C++/Rust skills, and a track record of delivering vision solutions in robotics or automation. Collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential.

Qualifications

• 8–10 years of professional software engineering experience in robotics, computer vision, or a closely related field.
• At least 2–3 years of experience in a formal or informal leadership capacity, such as a Team Lead, Tech Lead, or Mentor, with a track record of guiding technical projects and junior engineers.
• Strong foundation in robotics fundamentals, including coordinate transforms, sensor calibration, perception pipeline design, and system architecture.
• Proven ability to perform hands-on, low-level debugging and systematic troubleshooting of complex robotic systems in real-world environments.
• Expert-level proficiency in Python, C++ and/or Rust with a focus on writing production-grade, well-tested code for autonomous systems.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, testing, and optimizing vision solutions for robotic or automation applications.
• Experience in building ML pipelines and optimizing/productizing ML models.
• Proficiency in AI/ML frameworks (e.g. PyTorch) and computer vision libraries (e.g., OpenCV, PCL, Open3D, CUDA).
• Familiarity with various depth sensing modalities (e.g., LiDAR, stereo vision, time-of-flight) and sensor fusion.

Responsibilities

• Lead Technical Execution: Guide a team of engineers through the full development lifecycle, from initial concept, hardware selection and algorithm design to field deployment and maintenance.
• Integrate classical and ML image processing algorithms for classification, depth sensing, and 3D reconstruction.
• Select the optimal sensors (e.g., LIDARs, time-of-flight cameras, stereo vision) for various applications.
• Create AI and ML models to enhance object detection, classification, and tracking capabilities.
• Utilize deep learning techniques to improve system accuracy and efficiency.
• Conduct extensive testing, validation, and calibration to ensure system accuracy and reliability.
• System Design: Design and maintain high-throughput perception pipelines, ensuring low latency and high reliability in real-time environments.
• Active Debugging: Take a "hands-on" approach to identifying and resolving bottlenecks or failures in the perception stack, including hardware-software integration issues.
• Code Quality & Mentorship: Drive high standards for code reviews, architectural design, and documentation while mentoring junior team members.
• Collaboration: Work with cross-functional teams, including mechanical, system, mechatronic, software and software quality assurance engineers, and domain experts to ensure solutions are aligned and integrated with product goals.

Skills

Robotics software engineering

Team leadership

Python

C++

Rust

ROS2

Computer vision

ML pipelines

Sensor fusion

Field deployment

Education

Master's or PhD in Computer Science / Computer Vision / Machine Learning

Tools

OpenCV

PCL

Open3D

CUDA

PyTorch

Job description

ATI is seeking a Lead Perception Engineer to lead a team addressing robotics perception challenges using classical and ML approaches. You will guide end-to-end development from concept to field deployment, selecting sensors and building production-grade perception pipelines.

The role requires hands-on debugging, strong Python/C++/Rust skills, and a track record of delivering vision solutions in robotics or automation. Collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential.