Senior Staff AI Software Engineer

Who you are

• 8+ years in machine learning/perception for robotics, with a track record of defining system architecture
• Master's or Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Computer Science, or a related field, with a strong foundation in machine learning, robotics, and intelligent systems
• Demonstrated experience architecting ML/perception systems for safety-critical or safety-rated contexts — human detection, functional safety, automotive or robotics or a comparable regulated domain
• Deep expertise in deep convolutional neural networks, multi-object tracking, data association, supervised learning, and pose estimation, with strong intuition for where these approaches break down in unpredictable, real-world conditions
• Experience making system-level tradeoffs across sensing modalities, redundancy, and compute constraints on embedded/real-time hardware
• A track record of setting technical direction at an organization level
• Publications in your field are a plus (CVPR, ICCV, RSS, ICRA preferred)
• Direct experience supporting a safety case or certification submission
• Experience architecting redundant or diverse sensing systems for safety-rated perception
• Experience architecting perception systems for humanoid or legged robots specifically
• Experience representing technical architecture to regulators, third-party certifiers, or safety auditors
• Substantial experience with failure mode analysis (FMEA), hazard analysis, and safety case strategy for autonomous or robotic systems

What the job involves

• We're looking for a Senior Staff AI Software Engineer, Perception to own the technical vision and system architecture for how Digit perceives and stays safe as we take on these more dynamic, less constrained environments
• Own the technical vision and system architecture for Perception that enables safety and efficiency, defining how Digit will perceive and reason about humans and hazards as it expands from structured work cells into open, dynamic environments
• Analyze key architectural tradeoffs across sensing modalities, model design, redundancy, and compute budget, balancing safety, latency, and real-world robustness
• Stay hands-on with development to prototype, validate, or build critical pieces yourself
• Partner with functional safety and systems engineering to define the safety case strategy, identifying what architecture and evidence will be required
• Support failure mode and hazard analysis at the system level, shaping which risks the architecture must design around
• Evaluate emerging research and technology, and decide what's worth adopting into future robot architectures
• Set standards for verification and validation of ML-based perception systems, especially for rare and safety-critical scenarios
• Collaborate across navigation, controls, and hardware to make sure the perception architecture serves the whole robot
• Act as a senior technical mentor and partner to engineers and technical leads across the organization, and represent the architecture to executive leadership, partners, and customers as needed

Benefits

• 100% Company Paid Disability, Life, Health, Dental & Vision Insurance (for AR employees)
• Employer Matched Retirement Plan
• Five Weeks of Paid Time Off Annually
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Referral Bonus Program
• Relocation Assistance (for certain roles)
• Stock Options (for certain roles)
• A culture that encourages flexible work schedules
• A culture that embraces individuality and authenticity