Perception Engineer, Senior

LOCATION: ONSITE — AUSTIN, TX Employment Type: Direct Hire, Full‑Time Job Title: Perception Engineer About 9 Mothers The modern battlefield has changed. Cheap, autonomous suicide drones have turned the tactical advantage upside down, and the world is looking for a solution. At 9 Mothers, we aren’t just "innovating"—we are building the shield. Backed by top-tier investors, we develop AI powered machines designed to intercept and neutralize Group 1/sUAS threats in real-time. Our flagship product is a low-power, counter-drone system built for the edge—on vehicles, at bases, or in a soldier's pack. Why 9 Mothers? While others build for "awareness" or "long-term research," we build for the immediate survival of those in harm’s way. We are a team of hackers, engineers, and mission-driven builders who value field-ready capability over polished slide decks. If you want to see your code or hardware in the field next month—not next year—this is your playground. Position Summary 9 Mothers is seeking a Perception Engineer to own the computer vision and machine learning stack that powers target detection, classification, and tracking in our counter-sUAS systems. The Perception Lead is responsible for the research, development, and deployment of the perception pipeline that enables EDDA to engage aerial threats in real time. This is a senior individual contributor position. Essential Duties - Own the visual perception pipeline end-to-end, including detection, classification, and tracking of sUAS targets in real time. - Design and train machine learning models that meet latency and accuracy requirements for edge deployment on Jetson-class hardware. - Architect and maintain the dataset and simulation pipeline, including data collection, labeling, curation, augmentation, synthetic data generation, and closed-loop retraining based on field performance. - Optimize inference performance on Jetson platforms, including model pruning, quantization, TensorRT integration, and custom kernel development as required. - Establish the model evaluation framework and metrics used to assess perception performance under operational conditions. - Deliver target state information (position, velocity, identity, uncertainty) to the controls subsystem. - Collaborate with the hardware team on camera, optics, and sensor selection. Requirements - 6+ years of professional experience in computer vision or machine learning, including production deployment on edge hardware. - Demonstrated experience shipping a detection or tracking system under real-world latency, small-object, or adversarial constraints. - Strong engineering skills beyond modeling, including experience with PyTorch or JAX through to deployed, optimized inference. - Proficiency in Python for model development and C++ or Rust for deployed inference. - U.S. citizenship and ability to pass a background check. Nice-to-Have - Experience working with infrared (IR), thermal, or multi-spectrum camera systems. - TensorRT and NVIDIA Jetson deployment experience at production scale. - Multi-object tracking under challenging conditions. - Multi-modal sensor fusion experience (EO/IR, radar, acoustic). - Synthetic data generation and sim-to-real methodologies. - Prior experience in defense or other safety-critical computer vision applications. - Active security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one. - A passion for building robots or engineering projects as a hobby. Benefits - Meaningful Early Equity: You aren't just an employee; you are a foundational owner. Your contributions directly drive the value of your stake in the company. - Direct Roadmap Influence: Forget the bureaucracy of big defense. You will have a seat at the table, directly shaping our product and technology trajectory from day one. - Mission-Critical Work: We don't build for "what if." We build systems the Department of War actively needs to counter immediate, real-world threats. - The Builder's Playground: Work in a brand-new lab fully optimized fo