Robotics AI & Computer Vision Engineer

Location: Columbus, Ohio
Employment: Full-Time or Part-Time, Contingent on SBIR/Contract Award
Experience Level: Early Career / New Graduate
Expected Start: Upon program award and funding
US Person: Need to be US person who is eligible for secret clearance

We are seeking a Robotics AI & Computer Vision Engineer to develop perception and intelligent decision-making capabilities for next-generation robotic systems.

You will work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computer vision, robotics, and embedded computing—turning data from cameras and other sensors into information that enables robotic systems to understand and respond to their environment.

This is a hands‑on engineering role. You’ll have the opportunity to develop algorithms, train models, integrate them onto real hardware, collect field data, and evaluate performance on operational robotic platforms.

This position is contingent upon successful SBIR or other government contract award
.

• Develop computer vision and machine-learning algorithms for robotic perception.
• Develop object detection, classification, tracking, localization, segmentation, and scene-understanding capabilities.
• Train, evaluate, optimize, and deploy AI/ML models using real and simulated datasets.
• Integrate cameras, thermal imagers, depth sensors, and other perception sensors.
• Develop multi-sensor and multi-camera perception capabilities.
• Optimize AI and computer vision algorithms for operation on embedded and edge-computing hardware.
• Develop methods for operating in challenging lighting, weather, motion, and environmental conditions.
• Build data pipelines for collecting, labeling, managing, and analyzing training and test data.
• Develop simulation and synthetic-data approaches to supplement real-world datasets.
• Quantify model performance, uncertainty, false-positive/false-negative rates, and operational limitations.
• Integrate perception outputs with autonomy, navigation, mission-management, and vehicle-control software.
• Participate in laboratory, field, and flight testing.
• Diagnose failures and improve algorithms based on real-world test results.
• Help establish the company’s AI/ML architecture, development processes, datasets, and technical roadmap.
• BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Aerospace Engineering, Data Science, or a related discipline.
• Experience with Python and/or C++.
• Understanding of computer vision, machine learning, neural networks, or image processing.
• Experience developing and evaluating AI/ML models.
• Strong software development and debugging skills.
• Ability to translate research concepts into functioning software.
• Interest in robotics, autonomous systems, aviation, or defense technology.
• Willingness to work directly with physical hardware and participate in field testing.

Experience with
PyTorch, Tensor Flow, OpenCV, CUDA, ROS/ROS 2, NVIDIA Jetson, edge AI, object detection, visual navigation, SLAM, sensor fusion, thermal imaging, synthetic data, or embedded computing is a plus.

We’re looking for someone who wants to do more than train models against an existing dataset.

The right candidate will want to understand the entire perception problem:
What should the robot detect? What sensors should we use? What data do we need? How do we train the model? How do we deploy it on constrained hardware? And how do we prove that it works in the real world?

Candidates who have built autonomous vehicles, drones, robots, computer-vision systems, AI applications, or other intelligent systems through university research, student engineering teams, internships, competitions, or personal projects are strongly encouraged to apply.

As an early member of the engineering team, you’ll have significant influence over our perception architecture, AI/ML development environment, sensor selection, data strategy, and future autonomous capabilities.

Important: This is a contingent position. Selection does not constitute a guarantee of employment. Hiring and the anticipated start date depend upon successful contract or SBIR award and availability of program funding.