Lead Perception ML Engineer for Autonomous Systems

Shield AI; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 195,200 - 292,800; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Shield AI in Boston is hiring a senior ML/vision engineer to lead model development, data pipelines, and deployment for autonomous perception systems. You will work across research and production to turn cutting-edge ideas into reliable, mission-ready capabilities.

You will collaborate with researchers, perception engineers, autonomy engineers, and platform teams, mentoring engineers and shaping architecture, while ensuring performance, robustness, and secure, scalable solutions.

Qualifications

• Typically requires 7+ years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree.
• Alternatively 6+ years with a Master’s, or 4+ years with a PhD.
• Experience deploying ML models for computer vision in production.
• Strong understanding of 3D vision problems/algorithms.
• Proficiency in PyTorch and TensorFlow.
• Demonstrated expertise deploying models using TensorRT and ONNX.
• Proficiency in C++ and Python.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

Responsibilities

• Model Development – Design, train, fine-tune, and maintain state-of-the-art vision, vision-language, and vision-language-action models.
• Data Pipelines & Model Training – Build scalable data pipelines, supervised fine-tuning (SFT) workflows, and evaluation loops.
• Model Deployment & Optimization – Deploy and optimize machine learning models for embedded hardware using ONNX, TensorRT, and related frameworks.
• Perception & Autonomy Applications – Apply ML to perception and autonomy challenges across aerial and autonomous systems.
• Research-to-Production – Translate research into production-ready capabilities balancing performance, robustness, and efficiency.
• Cross-functional Collaboration – Partner with perception, autonomy, platform, and software teams.
• Model Evaluation & Validation – Develop benchmarks, testing methodologies, and evaluation frameworks.
• Continuous Improvement – Improve training infra, tooling, deployment workflows, and model lifecycle management.

Skills

ML fundamentals

Production CV models

3D vision algorithms

PyTorch

TensorFlow

C++

Python

SECRET clearance

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Master’s degree

PhD

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

TensorRT

ONNX

Job description

Shield AI in Boston is hiring a senior ML/vision engineer to lead model development, data pipelines, and deployment for autonomous perception systems. You will work across research and production to turn cutting-edge ideas into reliable, mission-ready capabilities.

You will collaborate with researchers, perception engineers, autonomy engineers, and platform teams, mentoring engineers and shaping architecture, while ensuring performance, robustness, and secure, scalable solutions.