Senior Robot Perception Engineer - Visual Inspection/MLOps

ABOUT THE ROLE

As a senior Robot Perception Engineer on the Smart Robotics team at Bright Machines, you will be a hands-on senior contributor responsible for productizing visual inspection solutions for our automation platform. You will own the full pipeline-from algorithm development to production deployment-turning prototype inspection capabilities into reliable, high-throughput features that operate at scale across our automation lines. In this role, you will develop and optimize computer vision and deep learning models for defect detection, classification, and visual validation. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing Operations, to design end-to-end inspection solutions that deliver consistent, accurate results under real-world factory conditions. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to shape the inspection product roadmap and drive the adoption of cutting-edge machine learning techniques in an industrial setting.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING

• Develop and optimize visual inspection algorithms for defect detection, anomaly detection, classification, and quality validation using deep learning

• Optimize model inference for GPU deployment, leveraging CUDA, TensorRT, and related acceleration frameworks

• Collaborate with Mechanical engineers to design illumination setups that maximize inspection accuracy and robustness

• Build and maintain data pipelines for model training, evaluation, and continuous improvement

• Partner with platform team to establish MLOps practices for model versioning, experiment tracking, automated retraining, and production model monitoring

• Harden inspection solutions for production reliability, including monitoring, alerting, and graceful degradation

• Work with service engineering and field teams to deploy inspection solutions and support customer rollouts

• Define metrics and benchmarks to measure inspection accuracy, throughput, and reliability

WHAT YOU WILL BRING

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or the equivalent in experience with evidence of exceptional ability.

• 5+ years of relevant experience in computer vision and/or machine learning

• Strong programming skills in Python

• Deep experience with PyTorch for model development and training

• Experience optimizing ML models for GPU inference in production environments

• Track record of shipping ML/CV models from prototype to production

• Experience with image acquisition, camera systems, and sensor integration

IT WOULD BE GREAT IF YOU HAD

• Knowledge of lighting and optics for machine vision (diffuse/directional illumination, lens and filters)

• Experience with industrial camera systems and standards (GigE Vision, GenICam, CoaXPress)

• C/C++ experience for performance-critical components

• Experience with MLOps tooling (MLflow, Weights & Biases, Kubeflow, or similar)

• Experience with data annotation, labeling workflows, and active learning strategies

• Experience with ROS2

• Understanding of manufacturing processes and quality control methodologies

• Publications or patents in computer vision, deep learning, or related fields