Robotics Software - Perception ML Engineer

Gritt; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Gritt is seeking an experienced Perception ML Engineer to join our robotics team in the SF Bay Area. You will help build AI capabilities for autonomous robots operating in outdoor environments, focusing on manipulation and navigation in dynamic settings.

You will own perception model development, deploy in production, and collaborate across teams to advance 3D scene understanding, detection, segmentation, and world/modeling pipelines, with an emphasis on real-world deployments.

Qualifications

• MS/PhD or equivalent experience in robotics, vision, CS, or engineering.
• 4+ years of hands-on experience developing perception solutions for robotics.
• Experience with detection, segmentation, pose estimation, tracking, 3D reconstruction, world models or VLMs.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deploy perception models for manipulation and navigation in outdoor environments.
• Drive the technical approach for real-world deployments of perception systems.
• Research 3D scene understanding, detection, segmentation, pose estimation, and world models.
• Work with multimodal data (cameras, LIDAR, tactile).
• Develop data pipelines and scalable training/validation infrastructure.
• Collaborate with other teams to advance product goals.

Skills

Perception ML

Robotics

Python

PyTorch

3D reconstruction

Pose estimation

Tracking

Education

MS/PhD

Tools

Isaac Sim

Gazebo

Blender

Unity

Job description

Gritt is an intelligent system that combines robotics and AI to build the infrastructure that pulls society forward. Gritt deploys via simple attachments to common equipment found on construction sites and autonomously performs labor-intensive tasks, verification, and planning. Gritt systems are already building critical infrastructure in the harshest outdoor environments, starting with large-scale solar. The founding team includes experts in robotics and AI from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and MIT. Gritt is backed by Obvious Ventures, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital, Climactic, Congruent Ventures, and other leading firms.

Role: Robotics Software - Perception ML

Location: SF Bay Area (in-person)

About the role

We’re looking for an experienced Perception ML Engineer to join our team. As an early member, you will play a pivotal role in building and shaping the AI capabilities of our robots. You will work on challenging problems around manipulation and navigation in dynamic outdoor environments. You'll need to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment where you'll wear multiple hats and have a direct impact on our product's evolution. Ideally, you have a proven track record of developing and deploying perception ML systems in production, and you're passionate about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics with AI.

What you’ll get to work on

• Develop and deploy state-of-the-art perception models for challenging manipulation and navigation problems.

• Help drive our technical approach, with particular focus on real-world deployments.
• Research and develop techniques around 3D scene understanding, detection, segmentation, pose and world/video models.
• Develop robust metrics to establish performance of large vision models.
• Work with multimodal data (e.g. cameras, LIDAR, tactile).
• Develop and improve real/synthetic data pipelines for challenging perception problems.
• Build scalable training and validation infrastructure.
• Collaborate with other teams in the company.

What we look for

• M.S/Ph.D degree in robotics, vision, computer science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering or other engineering disciplines (or equivalent experience).
• 4+ years of hands-on experience developing perception solutions for robotics applications like manipulation and navigation.
• Experience working on one or more of detection, segmentation, pose estimation, tracking, 3D reconstruction, world models and VLMs.
• Experience working with synthetic data pipelines and robotics simulation infrastructure (e.g. Isaac Sim, Gazebo, Blender, Unity).
• Extensive experience with Python and common ML frameworks like PyTorch.
• Should be comfortable taking ownership of tasks with light supervision.
• Must have excellent problem-solving skills.
• Legally authorized to work in the United States.