Senior Perception Engineer

FieldAI; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 1,850,000; Full time

Job summary

FieldAI is hiring in Irvine to design, build, and deploy perception systems for autonomous robots operating in complex real-world environments. You will own perception components end-to-end, from design through field validation and maintenance.

You will work with LiDAR and vision data for 3D perception, integrate multi-sensor outputs, and collaborate closely with planning and field engineering teams to ensure safety and reliability of robot behavior.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning or a related technical field; graduate degree preferred.
• 4+ years of professional experience in machine learning, computer vision, robotics, or related areas with hands-on perception engineering experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy perception systems for autonomous robots in real-world environments.
• Develop new perception capabilities using existing model outputs and new algorithms.
• Work with LiDAR and vision data focusing on 3D perception and geometric reasoning.
• Integrate multi-sensor perception algorithms across simulation and real deployments.
• Collaborate with planning and autonomy teams to support downstream decision-making and safety.
• Debug perception and system-level issues in the field, including synchronization and calibration.
• Optimize algorithms for real hardware with real compute, latency, and environmental constraints.
• Improve perception performance through offline evaluation and field validation.
• Develop scalable data pipelines for training and evaluation of perception systems.
• Establish evaluation methodologies and regression testing for robustness.

Skills

C++

CUDA

GPU optimization

LiDAR

3D perception

Vision sensors

System debugging

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning

Graduate degree preferred

Job description

FieldAI’s Irvine team is where embodied AI meets real robots, real sensors, and real field deployments. Based in the heart of Southern California’s robotics ecosystem, we build risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems that solve the hardest problems in robotics and unlock the full potential of embodied intelligence. If you want your work to ship, get tested on hardware, and improve through real deployments, Irvine is the place. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-only architectures, combining rigorous engineering with learning systems proven in globally deployed solutions that deliver results today and get better every time our robots run in the field.

What You’ll Get To Do

• Design, build, and deploy perception systems for autonomous robots operating in complex real-world environments, taking ownership from initial design through on-robot deployment and long-term maintenance.
• Develop new perception capabilities by leveraging existing model outputs where possible and designing new algorithms or perception tasks where needed.
• Work extensively with LiDAR and vision data, with a strong emphasis on 3D perception and geometric reasoning as core components of the perception stack.
• Develop and integrate multi-sensor perception algorithms, combining information across sensors to provide robust and reliable outputs in both simulation and real-world deployments.
• Partner closely with planning and autonomy teams to define perception outputs that directly support downstream decision-making, navigation, and safety.
• Debug perception and system-level issues in the field, including sensor timestamps, synchronization, calibration, data quality, coordinate frames, and hardware/software integration. Determine whether issues should be solved within perception or addressed upstream with the core platform team.
• Bring algorithms all the way to physical robots, profiling, debugging, and optimizing them under real compute, latency, sensor, and environmental constraints.
• Continuously evaluate and improve perception performance through offline evaluation, simulation, on-robot testing, and field validation.
• Solve long-tail and safety-critical perception challenges by developing scalable data mining, training, and evaluation pipelines for rare real-world scenarios.
• Ensure model quality across releases by developing evaluation methodologies, regression detection systems, and practical performance metrics—including ground-truth-free metrics where appropriate.
• Improve the robustness, scalability, and maintainability of the perception stack, balancing rapid product development with long-term system quality.

What You Have

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, or a related technical field; graduate degree preferred.
• 4+ years of professional experience in machine learning, computer vision, robotics, or related areas, with substantial hands‑on perception engineering experience.
• Hands‑on experience deploying perception systems on real‑world robotic platforms; experience limited to simulation or offline datasets is not sufficient.
• Strong experience working with LiDAR and vision sensors, particularly for 3D perception and real‑world robotics applications.
• Strong systems‑level understanding of perception and its interaction with the broader autonomy stack, with the ability to reason about interfaces, latency, failure modes, and downstream behavior.
• Experience with planning, navigation, or controls is a strong plus, especially where perception outputs directly influence robot behavior.
• Experience debugging systems, including sensor data quality, synchronization, calibration, coordinate transforms, and failures observed only during real‑world operation.
• Ability to own complex perception subsystems end‑to‑end—from technical design and implementation through deployment, validation, debugging, and long‑term maintenance.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience writing robust, production‑quality C++.
• Experience with CUDA and GPU optimization is highly desirable.
• Background in autonomous vehicles, field robotics, mobile robotics, or similarly complex real‑world autonomous systems.
• Ability to operate effectively across algorithm, systems, and product boundaries and collaborate closely with perception, platform, planning, and field engineering teams.

What Sets You Apart

• Experience integrating and calibrating custom sensor rigs (e.g., stereo or multi‑LiDAR setups)
• Prior experience contributing to a planning stack
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, performance regression testing, and benchmarking for perception systems
• Demonstrated leadership in research, field operations, or mentoring junior engineers and researchers

$160,000 - $1,850,000 a year

Our salary range is generous and we consider each individual’s background and experience when determining final compensation. Base pay may vary based on role scope, job‑related knowledge, skills, experience, and the Irvine, California market.

Why Join FieldAI in Irvine?

In Irvine, you will work where the robots are. Our local team builds and tests systems on real hardware with real sensors, then ships them to operate in unstructured, previously unknown environments around the world. We are solving one of robotics’ hardest challenges: reliable deployment outside the lab. Our Field Foundational Models™ raise the bar for perception, planning, localization, and manipulation, with an emphasis on explainability and safety for real‑world use.

You will collaborate with a world‑class team that thrives on creativity, resilience, and bold thinking. We bring deep experience from organizations such as DeepMind, NASA JPL, Boston Dynamics, NVIDIA, Amazon, Tesla Autopilot, Cruise, Zoox, Toyota Research Institute, and SpaceX, along with a track record of field deployments and strong performance in DARPA challenge segments.

Be Part of the Next Robotics Revolution

We are looking for builders who want their work to leave the whiteboard and show up on robots. If you enjoy tackling tough, uncharted questions and working across disciplines, you will find your people here. Our teams span AI, software, robotics engineering, product, field deployment, and technical communication, all focused on shipping systems that perform in the real world.

Our headquarters is in Irvine, and we partner closely with teams there as well as colleagues across the US and around the world. Join us in Southern California and help define what dependable, field‑ready autonomy looks like.

We value diverse perspectives and are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. We evaluate candidates and employees based on merit, qualifications, and performance, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or any other legally protected status.