Senior Perception Engineer, Autonomous Systems

Location: On-site - Clearwater, FL

Employment type: Full-time

Security Requirement: This position requires eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance. U.S. citizenship is required for security-clearance eligibility.

Compensation: $160-$200k

The Company

We are building autonomy software and hardware that operate on real aircraft, in real time, under real-world constraints to directly support US forces and our allies. Our work spans onboard object detection and tracking, image-to-map localization, visual navigation, camera processing, and the integration of perception with broader autonomy systems. These capabilities run on embedded edge hardware and must remain reliable when imagery is imperfect, compute is limited, and field conditions differ from the lab. We are looking for a capable engineer who thrives in this environment.

The Role

You will own difficult perception and autonomy problems from initial investigation through deployed performance. Depending on the problem, that may mean evaluating an algorithm in a custom simulation, building a prototype, integrating it into the flight software, profiling it on target hardware, or diagnosing an unexpected result from recorded or field data. You will work across system boundaries rather than inside a narrow research silo. A perception failure might originate in a model, camera configuration, timestamp, coordinate transform, tracker, deployment artifact, or an incorrect assumption about the operating environment. You should enjoy following that evidence wherever it leads and owning the problem until solved.

You will:

• Develop and improve capabilities such as detection, tracking, visual localization, image registration, and visual navigation.
• Turn promising algorithms and models into dependable, testable production software.
• Design evaluations that reveal how a system will behave outside a curated dataset.
• Investigate failures using imagery, recorded sensor data, telemetry, profiling, and controlled experiments.
• Optimize systems for embedded compute platforms without losing sight of accuracy and robustness.
• Work directly with autonomy, controls, embedded, and flight-test engineers to validate complete system behavior.
• Help make sound technical decisions when requirements or available information are still evolving.

Core Qualifications

• History of exceptional performance and prior project or work experience in related domains.
• The ability to brainstorm, design, write, and debug production-quality software rapidly.
• Strong computer vision fundamentals, particularly in one or more areas such as geometric vision, tracking, detection, localization, or state estimation.
• Experience taking an algorithm beyond a notebook or benchmark and validating it as part of a working system.
• Experience with robotics software and hardware technologies such as ROS2, OpenCV, NVIDIA Jetson, Qualcomm Snapdragon, etc.
• Experience with effectively using modern agentic AI tools while maintaining the highest levels of reliable engineering output.

The Ideal Candidate

The strongest candidate is an independent thinker who learns quickly and exercises good engineering judgment. You are comfortable entering an unfamiliar subsystem, identifying what matters, and becoming productive without waiting for a perfectly defined task. You separate evidence from intuition, design focused experiments, and change your mind when the data demands it. You can balance research and delivery. You know when an existing technique is sufficient, when it needs adaptation, and when a genuinely new approach is justified. You communicate clearly, expose uncertainty early, and collaborate well with engineers from other disciplines. You are comfortable in a dynamic environment where field results can change priorities and where individual engineers are trusted with meaningful ownership. You are highly adaptable, able to quickly learn anything required

Nokturnal AI is an advanced technology company focused on developing cutting-edge systems in aerospace, AI/ML, and defense-related integration. Our work centers on building high-performance, mission-critical solutions with a strong emphasis on innovation, precision, and operational excellence.