Robotics Architect – Perception

Darwin Recruitment; United States; Hybrid; USD 127,000 - 174,000; Full time

Job summary

Darwin Recruitment is helping an international engineering business build a Physical AI and robotics capability in Germany. We seek a senior Robotics Perception Architect to shape complete perception solutions for autonomous machines, guiding engineering teams from concept to delivery.

You will define sensor fusion, perception pipelines, and integration with navigation, planning, and manipulation systems, while engaging with customers and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Significant production software experience in C++ and Python.
• Strong background designing perception systems for robotics or autonomous vehicles.
• Leadership or senior engineering experience in architecture or principal roles.

Responsibilities

• Design perception architectures for autonomous vehicles, mobile robots and intelligent machinery.
• Define the complete data journey from sensors to localisation and decision-making.
• Lead technical reviews and communicate architecture direction to multidisciplinary teams.
• Support pre-sales activity with workshops, assessments and solution design.
• Translate customer challenges into practical engineering plans and roadmaps.

Skills

C++

Python

Robotics perception

German & English

Tools

ROS/ROS 2

OpenCV

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

The opportunity

We are supporting an international engineering business building a new Physical AI and robotics capability in Germany.

They are looking for a senior Robotics Perception Architect who can shape complete perception solutions for autonomous machines operating in demanding, real-world environments. This is not a purely research-focused position. You will help customers define what should be built, make the key technical decisions and guide engineering teams through delivery.

The work will cover both new robotic platforms and the introduction of autonomous capabilities into existing industrial vehicles and equipment.

What you'll be doing

• Design perception architectures for autonomous vehicles, mobile robots and intelligent machinery
• Define the complete journey from sensor input and data processing through to localisation, environmental understanding and decision-making
• Select suitable combinations of cameras, LiDAR, radar, depth sensors and other sensing technologies
• Create robust computer vision and sensor-fusion systems capable of operating outside controlled environments
• Connect perception software with navigation, path planning, motion control and robotic manipulation systems
• Decide how workloads should be distributed across embedded hardware, edge infrastructure and cloud platforms
• Evaluate technical trade-offs involving accuracy, response time, compute availability, power consumption and operational safety
• Establish approaches for training data, synthetic datasets, model validation, deployment and ongoing monitoring
• Run technical discovery sessions with customers and convert operational challenges into practical engineering plans
• Present architecture proposals, technology choices and development roadmaps to both engineering and senior client stakeholders
• Support pre-sales activity through workshops, technical assessments and early-stage solution design
• Lead design reviews and provide architectural direction to multidisciplinary robotics teams
• Test emerging robotics and AI technologies through prototypes and proof-of-concept systems

What we're looking for

• Significant professional experience developing production software in C++ and Python
• A strong background designing perception systems for robotics, autonomous vehicles or intelligent industrial machines
• Previous responsibility as a Software Architect, System Architect, Technical Lead or Principal Engineer
• Deep understanding of computer vision, machine learning and multi-sensor perception
• Practical experience with ROS or ROS 2, OpenCV, PyTorch and/or TensorFlow
• Knowledge of object detection, semantic or instance segmentation, tracking and scene understanding
• Experience working with 3D sensor data, including point clouds, depth cameras or RGB-D inputs
• Strong understanding of sensor fusion, localisation, mapping and SLAM
• Familiarity with autonomous navigation, motion planning or robotic manipulation
• Experience using simulation environments such as NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Blender, Gazebo, Genesis or comparable platforms
• Knowledge of deploying AI models onto embedded, edge or cloud-based systems
• Understanding of MLOps, automated testing, CI/CD and the monitoring of deployed perception models
• Comfortable working in Linux-based development environments
• The mathematical and algorithmic foundation needed to evaluate complex robotics systems
• Confident leading technical conversations directly with customers
• Professional German and English communication skills

Why consider it?

• Help establish a growing Physical AI and robotics engineering function
• Work across perception, autonomy, simulation, edge AI and real-world hardware
• Influence projects from initial customer discovery through to production delivery
• Solve problems involving complete robotic systems rather than one isolated software component
• Remain technically close to the work while operating at architecture and customer level
• Flexible working within Germany, with travel to customer facilities and engineering environments when required