Principal Software Engineer, Perception
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 15, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 13, 2026.
About the Role
Join the perception team at a growth-stage defense technology company building autonomous systems for demanding environments. As the Principal Software Engineer, you will set the technical direction for perception capabilities that support safe and effective vehicle autonomy.
What You'll Do
Define architecture and technical direction for sensor fusion, localization, tracking, mapping, and uncertainty estimation.
Integrate heterogeneous sensors, including radar and cameras, into reliable information streams for downstream autonomy.
Partner with autonomy, navigation, and applied machine learning teams to support safe vehicle behavior in complex ocean environments.
Turn research and advanced algorithms into production systems that meet onboard compute, latency, sensor, and environmental constraints.
Lead architecture decisions, technical reviews, and hands-on problem solving while mentoring senior and staff engineers.
Guide data labeling, ground truth dataset development, and evaluation frameworks, and contribute to hiring as the team grows.
What We're Looking For
At least 8 years of perception or robotics engineering experience, including staff-level technical leadership and architecture ownership.
Experience building and deploying production perception systems on autonomous vehicles or robots, including onboard software.
Deep expertise in sensor fusion, computer vision, localization, state estimation, tracking, mapping, probabilistic estimation, and uncertainty modeling.
Strong mathematical and algorithmic foundations, with experience using C++, Python, machine learning, and neural networks.
Experience running inference on constrained edge hardware under latency requirements, ideally with Nvidia Jetson or comparable systems.
Familiarity with multiple sensor modalities such as radar and cameras; maritime or ocean autonomy experience is a plus.
An advanced degree in a relevant field is preferred.
Must be a U.S. Person, such as a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
Compensation & Benefits
Annual salary range: $300,000 to $380,000. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
Hybrid, based in Alameda, California, with three days per week in the office.