Lead AI Automation Engineer, Data Annotation Services
About The Position
Caterpillar is seeking a Lead AI Automation Engineer to provide technical leadership for a scrum team developing annotation automation solutions that create training data for robotics, autonomy, computer vision, and Vision-Language-Action (VLA) systems. The role combines software engineering, machine learning, and data engineering to develop automated annotation and captioning capabilities for real-world heavy equipment and construction environments. The engineer will deploy and extend technologies such as NVIDIA Cosmos Curator and Cosmos Reason, and develop Caterpillar-specific AI models for automated labeling, captioning, and AI-driven quality assurance. This is a hands-on technical leadership role focused on turning complex AI and data challenges into scalable production solutions. The work involves developing the data foundation for intelligent machines operating in dynamic jobsites, across computer vision, multimodal AI, robotics, autonomy, and VLA systems. The role is based full-time onsite at Caterpillar’s Irving, Texas office, five days per week. Domestic relocation assistance and visa sponsorship are available, subject to eligibility.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field.
- Experience leading technical delivery for software or AI engineering teams.
- Experience developing production-grade software using Python and modern software engineering practices.
- Experience designing and implementing distributed systems, APIs, and data processing pipelines.
- Experience training, fine-tuning, or deploying machine learning models.
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work across multiple technical disciplines.
- At least 3 years of experience generating and managing camera and LiDAR sensor datasets for perception or machine learning applications, including data collection pipeline design and ground truth generation.
- At least 3 years of experience in data annotation and quality assurance for autonomous systems or computer vision projects, including defining annotation guidelines, identifying labeling defects, and improving dataset accuracy.
- Experience using annotation and dataset management tools such as Labelbox, Supervisely, RoboFlow, or similar toolchains.
- Experience using machine learning frameworks and training tools such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, ONNX, Weights & Biases, MLflow, or similar frameworks.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with computer vision, robotics, autonomy, Physical AI, or multimodal AI systems.
- Experience with AI-assisted annotation, auto-labeling, or machine learning data pipelines.
- Experience training or fine-tuning foundation models, vision models, or multimodal models.
- Experience with NVIDIA Cosmos Curator, Cosmos Reason, or similar AI automation platforms.
- Experience with Vision-Language-Action (VLA) datasets and workflows.
- Experience with sensor data such as cameras, LiDAR, radar, or autonomous machine datasets.
- Experience with cloud platforms, MLOps, and machine learning deployment pipelines.
- Experience building human-in-the-loop AI workflows and quality automation systems.
Responsibilities
- Lead technical execution of a scrum team focused on annotation automation and AI-driven data production.
- Design, develop, and deploy automated labeling and captioning solutions for perception and VLA datasets.
- Train, fine-tune, and evaluate AI models for auto-labeling, auto-captioning, and annotation quality automation.
- Build data pipelines and workflows that move datasets through automated labeling, human review, quality validation, and publication.
- Implement and extend platforms such as NVIDIA Cosmos Curator, Cosmos Reason, and other AI automation technologies.
- Develop solutions integrating Caterpillar data systems with external annotation providers and human-in-the-loop workflows.
- Drive reliability, scalability, observability, and operational excellence across annotation automation services.
- Mentor engineers and provide day-to-day technical leadership for the team.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits.
- Paid time off plan, including vacation, holidays, and volunteer time.
- 401(k) savings plans.
- Health Savings Account (HSA).
- Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs).
- Health Lifestyle Programs.
- Employee Assistance Program.
- Voluntary benefits and employee discounts.
- Career development.
- Incentive bonus.
- Disability benefits.
- Life insurance.
- Parental leave.
- Adoption benefits.
- Tuition reimbursement.
- Domestic relocation assistance.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
