Senior Machine Learning Engineer

SeaSatellites, Inc.; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Competitive insurance

401k matching

Four free lunches per week

Employee activity fund

Pet-friendly office

Unlimited/Flex PTO

Job summary

Seasats is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to own perception-model development, training, and edge deployment for maritime autonomous vehicles. You will shepherd models from experiment to production, curate fleet data, and validate real-world performance at sea.

You will define the ML roadmap for onboard perception, run impactful experiments, and collaborate with vehicle software to integrate your work into the stack while mentoring peers and communicating complex ideas clearly.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in ML, 5+ years perception in production
• Deep computer vision, foundation models, small custom models
• Ship ML models to edge devices, optimize for edge
• Strong Python, PyTorch, OpenCV fluency
• MLOps for dataset versioning, experiments, deployment
• Real-time sensor data experience; fusion concepts
• Ability to scope projects, mentor engineers, communicate well

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the ML roadmap for vehicle perception
• Experiment with clearly measurable end states affecting performance
• Train, fine-tune, and optimize edge models; validate on target hardware
• Build and maintain data pipelines from fleet data
• Establish evaluation frameworks and metrics for model behavior

Skills

Machine learning

Perception

Edge deployment

Python

PyTorch

OpenCV

MLOps

Sensor data

Project leadership

Technical communication

Tools

TensorRT

ONNX Runtime

Job description

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Location: San Diego, CA (in-office)

Salary Range: $180,000 - $250,000 / yr + stock options, 401k matching, and other benefits

Role Overview:

Seasats' vehicles operate in highly remote and often communications-limited environments. To complete persistent missions at scale, the vehicles must be able to perceive and reason about the world around them without humans in the loop. Seasats has built a reliable and increasingly intelligent autonomy stack incorporating onboard sensors and processing, and machine learning is becoming central to how it evolves.

In this role, you'll own the development, training, and edge deployment of the perception models at the heart of that stack. You'll take models from experiment to production: curating fleet data, training and distilling models, optimizing them for embedded hardware, and validating them against real-world maritime conditions. Your work will directly determine how safely and intelligently our vessels navigate dynamic ocean environments.

Role Details:

As a senior member of the team, you'll help set the technical direction for onboard ML at Seasats and raise the bar for how models are built, evaluated, and shipped across the company. You'll work independently on experiments while collaborating closely with the vehicle software team to integrate your work into the larger stack.

On a day‑by‑day basis, you will:

• Help define and drive the ML roadmap for vehicle perception
• Scope and run ML experiments with clearly measurable end states that would positively impact vehicle performance if successful
• Train, fine‑tune, and optimize models sized for compute‑limited edge hardware, and validate real‑time performance on target hardware
• Build and maintain the data pipeline: analyzing, organizing, and labeling datasets from our fleet to drive data‑driven development
• Establish evaluation frameworks and metrics that give the team confidence in model behavior before it goes to sea

This is an excellent opportunity to do high impact work, see your models running live on vehicles at sea, and join a fun and hard‑working team on the cutting edge of ocean autonomy.

About You:

• 7+ years in machine learning, including 5+ years solving perception problems in production systems
• Deep computer vision background, including foundation models and training smaller custom models
• Track record of shipping performant ML models to edge devices and hands‑on experience with model optimization for the edge (quantization, pruning, and inference runtimes such as TensorRT or ONNX Runtime)
• Strong proficiency in Python, with expert‑level fluency in PyTorch and strong working knowledge of OpenCV
• Experience with MLOps tooling for dataset versioning, experiment tracking, and model deployment
• Experience working with real‑time sensor data (e.g., camera, radar, and IMU streams) and familiarity with classical perception techniques (e.g., filtering, tracking, sensor fusion
• Demonstrated ability to scope projects independently, lead technical efforts, and mentor other engineers
• Strong technical communication skills
• A bias toward getting multiple projects to 80% rather than one project to "perfect", while taking great joy in seeing projects approach perfection over time

In addition, it's nice (though not essential) if you have experience working with:

• Probabilistic algorithms for obstacle and target tracking, and change detection algorithms for a variety of data types
• Real‑time multi‑modal sensor fusion across LiDAR, radar, camera, and IMU data
• Maritime and/or acoustic data
• Path‑planning and control algorithms

About Seasats:

At Seasats, we're passionate about delivering maritime robotics solutions to redefine the maritime industry. Our primary products are unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), designed to carry sensors at sea for months at a time. Our USVs provide persistent monitoring and data acquisition to defense, scientific, and commercial customers, and have autonomously crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. After thousands of years in which the only way to gather information from the ocean was to put people on a boat, these uncrewed vessels are transforming how humanity monitors and interacts with the ocean. Here, you'll find the space and opportunity to do your life's best work.

Along with your salary, you'll receive perks including:

• Stock options
• Competitive insurance (including a 99% employer‑covered Gold HMO plan or other options)
• 401k matching up to 4% of salary
• Four free lunches per week
• An employee activity fund
• A pet‑friendly office
• Unlimited/Flex PTO

Hiring Notes:

Due to export control requirements applicable to this position, we are only able to consider U.S. persons, as defined by U.S. export control laws. This includes U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and individuals granted asylee or refugee status.

We appreciate diverse perspectives and life experiences, and we're committed to building a team that reflects a wide range of backgrounds. Seasats provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination of any type based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under federal, state, or local law.