Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Tocaro Blue; Birmingham (AL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) with 4% company matching

Health/dental/vision

Life & disability insurance

Generous PTO

Job summary

Tocaro Blue, LLC seeks a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to design, train, and deploy ML models for radar and camera fusion in maritime environments. You will advance perception stacks for autonomous ships and work with data from real and simulated environments to enhance object detection and tracking.

Your role emphasizes developing segmentation, classification, and fusion models, plus deploying optimized inference on CPU/ARM64 edge platforms, while collaborating with fusion and autonomy

Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, or related field.
• 7+ years applying machine learning and signal processing to dynamic systems.
• Mastery of semantic segmentation and object classification models.
• Expert-level Python skills with ML frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Invent and refine deep learning architectures for Radar and EO/IR imagery, focusing on segmentation and tracking.
• Develop ML pipelines for low-SNR Radar returns and multi-stage contexts.
• Train on large proprietary datasets and perform data collection and annotation.
• Optimize and deploy models to edge hardware, including C++ inference layers.
• Advance fusion-aware ML models integrating Radar with other sensors for robust classification.

Skills

Semantic segmentation

Object classification

Python (TensorFlow/PyTorch)

Edge deployment (C++)

Radar/EO-IR data

Education

MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, or related field

Tools

TensorFlow/Keras

PyTorch

C++

Job description

Transform Maritime Intelligence with Cutting-Edge AI/ML
Are you an experienced machine learning researcher ready to push the limits of AI in one of the toughest domains—maritime autonomy? At Tocaro Blue, your expertise in designing, training, and deploying custom ML models will directly advance our foundational perception stack, ProteusCore radar tracking and ApolloCore radar/camera fusion.

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will build ML models for object detection, semantic segmentation, and tracking. You’ll design algorithms capable of distinguishing vessels, land, shoreline constructions, wakes, and markers in dynamic maritime environments where off-the-shelf models fall short. You will be responsible for organizing dataset design, data collection in real and simulated environments, and synthetic augmentation of radar and camera datasets.

Your Work Will Fuel Products Used By

• Defense customers developing USVs/ASVs for the U.S. Navy.
• Commercial OEMs bringing advanced marine ADAS and autopilot features to market.

This role is an opportunity to define the ML foundations of maritime autonomy—where perception evolves from situational awareness, to navigation assistance, to full autonomy.

Core ML and Autonomy Innovation

• Invent and refine custom deep learning architectures for Radar and EO/IR imagery, with an emphasis on semantic segmentation and temporal tracking.
• Develop multi-stage ML pipelines (context + characteristic models, segmentation + classification) tailored to low-SNR Radar returns.
• Train models on proprietary large-scale datasets (millions of Radar samples and camera sequences) with design-of-experiment methods for data collection and annotation.
• Optimize and deploy models to resource-constrained edge hardware (CPU-only and ARM64 platforms), including C++ inference layers.
• Advance fusion-aware ML models that integrate Radar with EO/IR, AIS, and cartography for robust classification in GPS-denied or cluttered environments.
• Collaborate with fusion and autonomy engineers to ensure ML outputs integrate seamlessly into multi-target tracking and SLAM pipelines.
• Contribute to ML-Ops workflows: data management, large-scale training, continuous integration of new field data, and automated evaluation pipelines.

Essential Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, or related field.
• 7+ years applying machine learning and signal processing to real-world dynamic systems (graduate research counts if directly applicable).
• Demonstrated mastery of semantic segmentation and object classification models, ideally applied to non-vision sensor modalities.
• Expert-level Python skills with ML frameworks (TensorFlow/Keras, PyTorch, or equivalent).

Preferred Expertise

• Track record of developing ML models beyond standard YOLO-style detectors, particularly for segmentation of noisy or sparse data (Radar, sonar, or medical imaging).
• Strong background in computer vision and temporal modeling (CNNs, transformers, RNNs for sequential sensor data).
• Experience deploying ML to embedded/edge platforms with optimized C++ inference.
• Knowledge of marine, automotive, or aerial robotics systems.
• Contributions to large-scale ML data pipelines: annotation strategies, dataset balancing, simulation-to-real transfer.
• Passion for pushing the boundaries of AI in GPS-denied, cluttered, and low-visibility environments.

Competitive Compensation & Growth

• Competitive base salary with potential equity in a rapidly growing company.
• Comprehensive benefits: 401(k) with 4% company matching, full health/dental/vision, life & disability insurance, generous PTO.
• Continuous learning via conferences, training, and professional growth.

Innovation-First Culture

• Direct impact on defining the AI backbone of maritime autonomy.
• Work on problems unsolved in automotive AI: Radar segmentation, maritime multi-object tracking, sensor fusion in GPS-denied waters.
• Collaborative environment with elite engineers and researchers.

Exciting Work Environment

• Full-time, in person Birmingham (AL).
• Hands-on field validation through semi-monthly data collection trips at our Pensacola test facility.
• A culture that balances innovation with personal growth.

Equal Opportunity & Eligibility

Tocaro Blue, LLC is an equal opportunity employer, and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
All employees must be eligible to obtain a U.S. Department of Defense security clearance. With few exceptions, this is restricted to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents (a.k.a. current Green Card Holders). Tocaro Blue LLC is not able to sponsor work visas nor permanent resident cards ("green cards") for this role.