Image Processing and Analysis Engineer

Merge Labs; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 185,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Merge Labs in San Francisco is seeking a scientist who will build and maintain a shared image-analysis core that turns image series into reliable measurements across our platforms.

You will develop image registration and analysis workflows, improve runtime efficiency, and validate methods with controls, collaborating with scientists to ensure repeatability and high data quality.

Qualifications

• Strong scientific Python skills and experience maintaining tested, documented software.
• Experience developing or substantially improving quantitative image-analysis workflows.
• Practical judgment about runtime and memory use in image-analysis workflows.
• Ability to validate analysis methods with controls and regression tests.
• Experience turning ambiguous scientific requests into useful workflows.

Responsibilities

• Develop image-based methods and scan strategies to locate wells and match brain imaging planes for repeatable probe positioning.
• Build analysis workflows for object and peak detection, background subtraction, drift correction, and response metrics such as rise and fall times.
• Develop registration methods for reconstructed image series, quantifying motion and alignment accuracy.
• Align ultrasound images with MRI and other anatomical references for imaging and targeting workflows.
• Validate analysis methods with reference measurements and regression tests to assess signal preservation and repeatability.
• Improve and maintain Python tools that scientists can run independently.
• Integrate analysis methods with acquisition and reconstruction workflows and optimize runtime and memory usage for large datasets.

Skills

Python

Image processing

Image registration

Validation

Performance optimization

Documentation

Scientific software

Tools

Bazel

Job description

Merge Labs is a frontier research lab with the mission of bridging biological and artificial intelligence to maximize human ability, agency and experience. We’re pursuing this goal by developing fundamentally new approaches to brain-computer interfaces that interact with the brain at high bandwidth, integrate with advanced AI, and are ultimately safe and accessible for anyone to use.

About The Team

We turn physical signals into information and back. We reason backward from neural readout and stimulation goals to co-optimize the physical and computational systems that make them possible. Working with scientists and engineers, we combine simulation, measurement, and signal processing across neural interfaces, device characterization, and high-throughput biological screening. Our systems stream tens of gigabits per second. Within constrained power envelopes, we find what limits sensitivity, resolution, and reliability, push what today’s devices can deliver, and set the specifications for future generations.

About The Role

You will build and maintain a shared image-analysis core that turns image series into reliable measurements across our platforms, with tools scientists can use independently. Image registration is central to the role, both across image series and to anatomical references. Early work includes locating wells and identifying brain imaging planes to guide repeatable probe positioning, and extracting response measurements for screening and in-vivo imaging.

In this role, you will:

• Develop image-based methods and scan strategies to locate wells and match brain imaging planes for repeatable probe positioning.
• Build analysis workflows for object and peak detection, background subtraction, drift correction, and response metrics such as rise and fall times.
• Develop and validate registration methods for reconstructed image series, quantifying motion and alignment accuracy.
• Develop registration methods to align ultrasound images with MRI and other anatomical references for imaging and targeting workflows.
• Agree metric definitions and acceptance criteria with scientists, including accuracy, repeatability, and failure conditions.
• Rigorously validate analysis methods with reference measurements, controls, and regression tests, assessing signal preservation and repeatability.
• Improve and maintain tested, documented Python tools that scientists can run independently.
• Integrate analysis methods with acquisition and reconstruction workflows and optimize runtime and memory use for large image datasets.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Experience developing or substantially improving quantitative image-analysis workflows used by others.
• Strong practical image-processing and spatial-reasoning skills, including detection and image registration.
• Sound numerical and signal-processing judgment about how sampling, filtering, and correction affect measured responses.
• Strong scientific Python skills and experience maintaining tested, documented software.
• Practical judgment about runtime and memory use in image-analysis workflows.
• A disciplined approach to validation and honest reporting of uncertainty, limitations, and failures.
• Experience turning ambiguous scientific requests into useful workflows with the people who use them.

Useful, but not required:

• Prior experience with multimodal image registration, particularly alignment to MRI.
• Ultrasound, microscopy, or other scientific imaging.
• Image-guided experimental automation.
• GPU or distributed image processing.
• Visualization tools used by scientists.
• Developing and evaluating learned image-analysis methods.
• Experience turning scientific Python prototypes into production-quality software, including work with build systems such as Bazel.
• Experience using AI tools or agents to develop scientific software and optimize processing pipelines.

For more information about hiring at Merge, please visit our Hiring FAQ

Merge Labs does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, family status, ancestry, citizenship, U.S. military (state and federal) and veteran status, or any other legally protected status. It is our intention that all applicants be given equal opportunity and that selection decisions are based on job related factors. We are an equal opportunity employer.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made by emailing [e-mail].

Compensation Range: $185K - $225K