**Location:** Onsite — Austin, TX **Employment Type:** Direct Hire, Full‑Time **Job Title:** Perception Lead, Staff Eng ** Company Overview ** 9 Mothers Defense develops AI-enabled systems to counter unmanned aerial threats. Our first product, EDDA, is an autonomous counter-sUAS point-defense platform designed to detect, track, and neutralize Group 1 drone threats. The company is headquartered in Austin, Texas. ** Position Summary ** 9 Mothers is seeking a Perception Lead 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. ** Preferred Qualifications ** - 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 for rapid prototyping, equipped with NVIDIA Jetsons, high-end scopes, and 3-D printers. - **100% Employer-Paid Premiums** : We cover 100% of your medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums and cover 50% of healthcare premiums for your dependents. - **Unlimited PTO** : We value results, not clock-watching.
Take the time you need to stay sharp and recharge. - **Zero Red Tape** : You report to the founders.
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Counter Drone Systems. $1.6m sales. We delivered for the DoW.