Senior ML Engineer II — Space Optics & EO/IR Vision

Rocket Lab Corporation

Chantilly (VA)

On-site

USD 153,000 - 230,000

Full time

5 days ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Company stock options

Medical, dental & vision insurance

401(k) retirement plan

Job summary

Rocket Lab, a leading space company, seeks a Senior Machine Learning Engineer II for its Optical Systems group in Chantilly, VA. You will develop deep learning solutions for EO/IR image processing, build ML pipelines, and collaborate across AI, ML, and CV teams to enable advanced DoD/IC capabilities.

The role emphasizes hands‑on model design, training, testing, and deployment with security clearance considerations and strong software fundamentals.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree with extensive work experience (8+ years) or advanced degrees as listed.
Strong background in machine learning including model selection, architecting, training, validation, testing, and deployment.
Experience building deep learning networks for computer vision, image processing, or video analysis (detection/segmentation/tracking).
Proficiency in Python.
Experience with deep learning libraries (Keras, TensorFlow, PyTorch).
Software engineering fundamentals: version control, testing, CI/CD, containerization.
US citizenship is required; ability to obtain security clearance.

Responsibilities

Contribute to developing ML solutions for DoD/IC space domain needs.
Design, train, and deploy ML models for Optical Systems applications.
Build and maintain ML pipelines for data ingestion, feature engineering, training, and inference.
Collaborate with researchers and engineers on AI, ML, and computer vision projects.
Perform rapid prototyping and development for integration into operational systems.
Troubleshoot, fix bugs, and maintain systems.