Perception Engineer; Technical Lead, Engineering

Position: Perception Engineer (Technical Lead, Engineering) - 30883
Requisition Number: 30883

Required Travel: 26 - 50%

Employment Type:

Full Time/Salaried/Exempt

Anticipated Salary Range: $ - $

Security Clearance:
Secret

Level of

Experience:

Senior

This opportunity resides with Uncrewed Systems (UxS), a business group within HII's Mission Technologies division. Uncrewed Systems comprises unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and autonomy software.

HII creates advanced unmanned solutions for defense, marine research and commercial applications. Serving customers in more than 30 countries, HII provides design, autonomy, manufacturing, testing, operations and sustainment of unmanned systems, including unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and unmanned surface vessels (USVs).

Leadership Mindset at HII - Mission Technologies

Leadership at HII is a mindset, not a title. Through our Leadership Capability Framework, we define how every employee grows, leads, and contributes-regardless of role. It sets the standard for how you can develop yourself and what you can expect from leaders across our organization. We look for candidates who want to grow in alignment with these capabilities:

+ Know & Grow Your People - Commit to learning and supporting team success.

+ Build Relationships - Communicate openly, collaborate well, and build trust.

+ Take Ownership - Deliver on commitments and take pride in your work.

+ Customer First - Focus on the mission and those we serve.

+ Shape the Future - Bring ideas, curiosity, and continuous improvement.

+ Act with Urgency - Take initiative and follow through with purpose.

These capabilities guide how all employees contribute to our shared success across Mission Technologies.

Come join HII!! Where hard stuff is done right!

HII Unmanned Systems is seeking a Perception Engineer to support our rapidly expanding autonomous systems division. As our new Perception Engineer, you will lead the development and deployment of perception systems that enable our unmanned platforms to intelligently sense, understand, and operate in complex maritime and operational environments.

This role oversees the design, implementation, and optimization of computer vision and sensor fusion pipelines that run on embedded edge hardware in real-world conditions. The position is responsible for building robust perception capabilities including object detection, tracking, state estimation, localization, and situational awareness systems. Responsibilities span architecture and development, sensor integration and calibration, performance optimization for edge compute, real-time system design, and cross-functional collaboration with autonomy, controls, software, hardware, and mission operations teams.

It's your chance to step up to the challenge and prove you're ready to lead the world!

Location:

Virginia Beach, VA area!

What you will be doing..

Perception Systems Development
- Design, develop, and maintain perception pipelines for unmanned maritime systems, including object detection, tracking, localization, state estimation, and SLAM algorithms
- Architect and implement sensor fusion systems that integrate data from cameras, LiDAR, radar, sonar, and other sensors to provide robust situational awareness
- Develop point cloud processing, filtering, and tracking algorithms for 3D perception in maritime environments
- Build and optimize computer vision models and deep learning systems for object recognition, classification, and scene understanding
- Implement sensor calibration procedures and algorithms to ensure accurate perception across varied environmental conditions
- Design and develop debugging and visualization tools, logging systems, and off-robot data processing pipelines to support development and field operations

Edge Deployment and Optimization
- Deploy and optimize perception systems on embedded edge hardware with strict latency and throughput constraints
- Apply quantization, pruning, model compression, and other optimization techniques to achieve real-time performance
- Develop efficient, maintainable software code that meets

production standards for reliability and performance
- Integrate perception outputs into autonomy stacks and mission software, working closely with platform and controls teams
- Model sensor performance and integrate perception systems into simulated virtual environments to bridge the sim-to-real gap

Testing and Performance Analysis
- Conduct rigorous testing of perception systems on real hardware and in operational environments, including maritime conditions
-…