Perception Engineer

Radical AI•New York, NY

18h•$175,000 - $225,000

About The Position

Radical AI is replacing an R&D process that currently takes 10+ years and $100 million to produce a single discovery. Our self-driving lab platform combines AI with autonomous robotics to run experiments, analyze results, and iterate—continuously, without human bottlenecks. For industries like aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, manufacturing, semiconductors, and space, that means breakthroughs in weeks instead of years. As a Perception Engineer in the Robotics and Automation group at Radical AI, you will design, deploy, and scale robust vision-guided automation in fast-moving lab environments. Your expertise will shape both the physical and systemic implementation of lab automation. You will collaborate closely with Roboticists, Mechatronics, Mechanical Engineers, and Material Scientists to meet rigorous and sometimes dynamic design requirements at an unprecedented deployment speed—bringing open-mindedness and creative fearlessness to ship world-class technology on timelines most teams consider impossible. Not you.

Requirements

Degree in Robotics, Computer Vision, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
5+ years of experience designing and deploying machine vision systems in robotics or automation environments
Strong hands-on experience with 2D/3D cameras, lenses, lighting, and optics
Proficiency in Python and/or C++ for production software development
Experience integrating vision systems with industrial robots and motion platforms
Experience solving novel computer vision problems
Experience with simulation, sim2real and domain randomization in a computer vision domain
Experience with robotic control frameworks (e.g., ROS/ROS2 or equivalent custom systems)
Demonstrable ability to work independently in a hands-on, development-oriented environment.

Nice To Haves

Deep robotics automation experience outside of vision
Hands on experience developing and integrating VLA models for robotics
Experience deploying ML and multimodal models on robotic platforms
Ability to develop novel algorithms for state estimation of fluids and particle flows
Experience in laboratory automation, materials science, or scientific instrumentation
Prior startup experience or ownership of systems from early prototype through production

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and deploy 2D and 3D vision systems for robotic manipulation, inspection, state verification, and sensor fusion
Develop vision-guided automation solutions integrating cameras, lighting, optics, and robots in laboratory and industrial environments
Implement perception pipelines for object detection, segmentation, pose estimation, and feature extraction
Work on classical detection algorithms as well as training and deploying state-of-the-art vision models
Own camera calibration and system-level accuracy validation
Integrate vision outputs with robot motion planning, grasping, and task execution
Collaborate with software, mechatronics, and mechanical teams to translate experimental and operational needs into automated solutions
Contribute to technical direction, architecture decisions, and best practices across the robotics, perception, and automation software stack