ETG
Vision Systems Engineer
San Francisco, CA
Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 26 days ago
PythonC++MATLABAlgorithmsMachine LearningData EngineeringFPGASystems EngineeringAerospace EngineeringElectrical EngineeringSignal Processing
About the role
- Your job is the vision algorithms: turning LWIR imagery into high-confidence track and guidance outputs in real time, on embedded space hardware, in demanding engagement environments.
Responsibilities
- This means building and validating the full pipeline from detection through tracking, state estimation, and discrimination, running on embedded space hardware under hard real-time constraints.
- Target Detection and Clutter Suppression: Design and implement adaptive detection algorithms against Earth-background and cold-space clutter, including background estimation, non-uniformity compensation, and track-before-detect approaches for high-velocity terminal engagement geometries.
- Target Discrimination: Develop and train lightweight CNN classifiers for target vs. decoy discrimination using radiometric imagery, optimized for real-time embedded inference via quantization, pruning, or equivalent techniques, with full synthetic and real data pipelines for training and validation.
- Simulation Integration and Validation: Integrate algorithms into an existing end-to-end IR scene simulation framework, develop thermal signature models for synthetic training data, conduct Monte Carlo analysis and hardware-in-the-loop validation, and own performance verification against program requirements.
- Design and implement adaptive detection algorithms against Earth-background and cold-space clutter, including background estimation, non-uniformity compensation, and track-before-detect approaches for high-velocity terminal engagement geometries.
- Design and implement multi-target tracking systems - track initiation, maintenance, correlation, and termination - using Kalman filters (EKF, UKF), IMM filters, and advanced data association methods (JPDA,
- Develop and train lightweight CNN classifiers for target vs. decoy discrimination using radiometric imagery, optimized for real-time embedded inference via quantization, pruning, or equivalent techniques, with full synthetic and real data pipelines for training and validation.
- Develop real-time image processing pipelines - non-uniformity correction, bad pixel replacement, background suppression, track-before-detect - on embedded
- Build end-to-end radiometric and noise models (NEDT, D*, SNR, clutter metrics), develop test plans, and execute lab and field characterization campaigns.
- We carry this legacy forward, knowing that innovation in these areas can lead to solutions that help people everywhere.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, Aerospace Engineering, or related technical field.
Nice to have
- Advanced degree preferred for senior applicants.
Benefits
- If you join the team, you will have the opportunity to work on hardware and software for US Department of Defense missions, NASA programs, and much more.
- About the Role We're hiring a hands-on Vision Systems Engineer to own the detection, tracking, and target discrimination software stack for a space-based IR sensing program supporting US national security missions.
- You will own the vision software stack that enables autonomous terminal guidance for a national security space mission.
- Qualifications Education: Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, Aerospace Engineering, or related technical field.
Company info
- We are motivated by the challenge of solving tough engineering problems, committed to creating sustainable change, and driven by a curiosity to explore and understand both our natural world and the universe.
This listing is sourced directly from ETG's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.