AI/SLAM/Autonomy Engineer

About the company:
Faraday Robotics is a global Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) company delivering autonomous and tactical solutions since 2019. With 140+ successful projects, we specialize in secure, offline-capable systems that work without GPS or internet.

We're hiring a senior AI/SLAM/Autonomy Engineer to lead the autonomy stack for ECITON — a distributed swarm drone platform for edge operations.
You’ll integrate visual SLAM, path planning, AI decision-making, and onboard ML inference to enable GPS-denied navigation, target detection, last-mile autonomy, and swarm coordination via ArduPilot-based controllers.

Key Responsibilities: 
• Design and integrate real-time SLAM pipelines (visual-inertial preferred) for autonomous navigation. 
• Object tracking algorithms using OpenCV. 
• Train and deploy lightweight ML models for onboard inference in real-world conditions. 
• Integrate AI/ML modules for target detection and behavioral decision-making. 
• Support GPS-agnostic navigation via sensor fusion and terrain-aware motion planning. 
• Collaborate with embedded, full-stack, and hardware teams to align the autonomy stack with system
level constraints. 
• Optimize performance on ARM-based edge compute platforms (Raspberry Pi, Jetson Nano, etc.).

Requirements: 
• Minimum 7 years of experience in autonomy, robotics, or computer vision systems. 
• Proficient in OpenCV, visual SLAM, and real-time localization. 
• Strong skills in C++ and Python; experience with ROS/ROS2. 
• Demonstrated experience with ML model training and deployment (TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc.). 
• Ability to run perception and AI systems on embedded Linux hardware. 
• Understanding of flight dynamics and real-time motion planning. 
• Ability to debug and tune systems in field environments.

Preferred Qualifications: 
• Experience with ArduPilot, PX4, or similar UAV control frameworks. 
• Familiarity with object detection models (e.g., YOLO, MobileNet) and model quantization. 
• Experience with multi-agent autonomy, swarm logic, or distributed path planning. 
• Background in defense, tactical robotics, or mission-critical systems. 
• English level not lower than B1 (Intermediate). 
• Agile development experience (Jira, Git).