Lead ML​/Perception Engineer

May Mobility is transforming cities through autonomous technology to create a safer, greener, more accessible world. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, May develops and deploys autonomous vehicles (AVs) powered by our innovative Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology that literally reimagines the way AVs think. Our vehicles do more than just drive themselves - they provide value to communities, bridge public transit gaps and move people where they need to go safely, easily and with a lot more fun.

We’re building the world’s best autonomy system to reimagine transit by minimizing congestion, expanding access and encouraging better land use in order to foster more green, vibrant and livable spaces. Since our founding in 2017, we’ve given more than 500,000 autonomous rides to real people around the globe. And we’re just getting started. We’re hiring people who share our passion for building the future, today, solving real-world problems and seeing the impact of their work.

Join us.

May Mobility is entering an exciting phase of growth as we expand our first-of-its-kind autonomous shuttle and mobility services across the nation. Launched in 2017 with a strong team of experienced roboticists and software engineers with decades of experience fielding robotic systems in the wild, May Mobility is looking to expand its team of robotics engineers with a background in robotics or autonomous vehicles.

As Perception Lead, you will own the technical direction of how our vehicles see and interpret the world. This is a hands on role focused on three priorities: advancing scene detection so the system reliably recognizes its operating context and engages the right behavior; hardening perception against sensor degradation and adverse weather (rain, snow, fog, glare, low light, and sensor soiling or occlusion) so performance degrades gracefully and safely;

and driving major architectural updates to evolve our perception stack into a scalable, maintainable, production-grade foundation. You will set the technical bar, mentor engineers, and deliver capabilities that operate safely in the real world.

Success in this role typically requires the following competencies:

• Proven ability to architect and evolve large-scale perception or autonomy systems, balancing performance, latency, safety, and long-term maintainability.
• Strong grasp of perception robustness and reliability engineering, including degraded-sensor operation, adverse-weather handling, fault detection, and graceful degradation.
• Experience with scene/scenario understanding and runtime activation logic (e.g., context classification, ODD monitoring, behavior triggering).
• Familiar with ML development cycle, deployment, and optimization.
• Deep understanding of data: data pipeline, data balancing, data mining, and data-driven performance improvement.
• Knowledge of multimodal learning techniques, including contrastive learning and prompt engineering for zero-shot visual recognition.
• Deep understanding of testing frameworks and workflows.
• Excellent attention to detail and rigorous testing methodology.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills and team-leading abilities.

Candidates most successful in this role typically hold the following qualifications or comparable knowledge or experience:

• A minimum of 5+ years of industry experience working on real-world robot systems maintaining high-quality industrial-grade code.
• Master’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, or Computer Engineering, or a field that requires a strong mathematical and/or engineering foundation.
• Demonstrated experience leading or making major architectural decisions for a perception, robotics, or autonomy software stack.
• St…