Perception Engineer III

Responsibilities

• Design and develop target detection, tracking, and state estimation pipelines
• Implement track initiation, maintenance, association, and termination logic
• Develop and tune nonlinear state estimators like EKF, UKF, and particle filters
• Architect world state representations fusing self-state, target tracks, terrain, and threats
• Integrate VIO/SLAM, sensor fusion, and target tracking into a unified perception picture
• Own perception architecture and drive alignment with autonomy and mission software teams
• Build ROS2 nodes and libraries with clean, versioned interfaces
• Develop and optimize perception code in C++ for embedded compute
• Profile compute, memory, and I/O to meet real-time constraints
• Mentor junior engineers through code review and technical direction

Requirements

• Bachelor's in Robotics, Aerospace, CS, EE, Applied Math, or related field
• 6-9+ years of experience in robotics perception, state estimation, or sensor fusion
• Strong proficiency in modern C++ for real-time embedded systems
• Hands-on experience with ROS2 and DDS-based middleware
• Experience developing and tuning nonlinear state estimators (EKF, UKF, or particle filters)
• Experience deploying perception software on embedded compute platforms
• Strong foundation in linear algebra, probability, and estimation theory
• Ability to obtain or maintain a security clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with seeker systems or target tracking in a defense context
• Hands-on work with WOSA, MOSA, or other open architecture standards
• Deep DDS experience including QoS design and performance tuning
• NVIDIA Jetson deployment and optimization experience
• Experience with SLAM/VIO frameworks (OpenVINS, VINS-Fusion, ORB-SLAM, etc.)
• Familiarity with PX4, ArduPilot, or MAVLink
• GPU acceleration experience (CUDA, TensorRT)

About the Company

Zone 5 Technologies is redefining what's possible in unmanned aircraft systems, developing cutting-edge autonomous solutions that push the boundaries of UAS technology.