Senior Engineering Manager, Perception

Saildrone • Alameda, CA

19h • $259,649 - $305,469 • Hybrid

About The Position

Saildrone is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager, Perception to join our Robotics Software Org. Reporting directly to the Director, Robotics Software, you will play a critical role in architecting, implementing, and productionizing our next-gen perception software to our drone fleet. We are looking for a technical leader who creates clarity from ambiguity and has a proven track record of independently driving execution in a fast-paced environment. In this role, you will balance strategic people management with deep technical ownership, staying hands-on with architecture and code while steering a world-class team of autonomy engineers.

Requirements

• 8+ years of progressive software experience in robotics, drones, or autonomous driving, with at least 2+ years of direct engineering management or technical leadership experience.
• Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Exceptional proficiency in modern C++ (14/17/20) and production-grade software development for Linux embedded environments.
• Deep understanding of perception fundamentals, including multi-object tracking, 3D computer vision, multi-sensor calibration, or deep learning deployment at the edge.
• Proven experience working with complex maritime sensor stacks, integrating and fusing raw data from long-range cameras, marine Radar, LiDAR, and AIS electronics.
• Experience building ingestion pipelines, auto-labeling frameworks, or regression workflows optimized for petabyte-scale, edge-case-heavy dataset exploration.
• Ability to dive into technical codebases to unblock developers while maintaining a highly collaborative, inclusive, and mission-driven engineering culture.

Responsibilities

• Lead and scale an elite engineering team, providing high-impact technical mentorship and career development while remaining directly hands-on with core architecture, code reviews, and critical implementations.
• Be accountable for the delivery, reliability, and edge performance of real-time perception software running on uncrewed platforms during months-long ocean deployments.
• Partner with the Autonomy, Machine Learning, Systems, and Hardware teams to align on product roadmaps, manage cross-functional dependencies, and ensure seamless sensor-to-actuation integration.
• Drive day-to-day execution using C++, our state-of-the-art robotics perception and ML software, and agile methodologies to maintain high-velocity development cycles and rigorous production-grade standards.
• Proactively identify system bottlenecks, algorithmic risks, and team blockers, implementing strategic mitigations to optimize high-performance compute on embedded platforms (e.g., NVIDIA Jetson).
• Establish robust validation, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing, and simulation frameworks leveraging large-scale maritime datasets to guarantee deterministic safety and performance.

Benefits

• Competitive Paid Time Off (PTO) accrual plus a robust annual holiday schedule and paid sick leave
• Premium, multi-tier Medical, Dental, and Vision plans with significant company contributions for employees and dependents
• Equity grants
• Access to a 401(k) retirement plan with flexible pre-tax and Roth payroll contribution options
• Annual professional development reimbursement program
• Relocation assistance for eligible roles

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree