Perception Software Engineer - Acoustic ML

About Zipline

Do you want to change the world? Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Through our technology that includes robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain. Join Zipline and help us to make good on our promise to build an equitable and more resilient global supply chain for billions of people.

About You and The Role

Zipline is at the forefront of a logistics revolution, using autonomous aircraft to deliver just-in-time, life-saving medical supplies on multiple continents, 7 days a week. We have completed over 200,000 deliveries; it took over 4 years to reach the first 100,000 deliveries. It took 8 months to reach the last 100,000 deliveries. Do you want to be a part of reaching 1 million life-saving deliveries in the next 2 years?

We believe access to medical care should not depend on your GPS coordinates. In service of our mission to operate at global scale, we’re growing our perception capabilities, to expand quickly and safely into new products and locations, with the ultimate goal of delivering essential packages right to your doorstep. Our perception team is looking for a machine learning engineer with expertise in audio who is passionate about developing and shipping perception systems for the real world.

What You'll Do

• Work with a multidisciplinary team to evaluate, select and calibrate next-generation sensor configurations for our vehicles
• Leverage a deep understanding of state estimation, object tracking, and mapping techniques to design integrated solutions that enable our highly maneuverable aircraft to perceive general aviation aircraft, power lines, radio towers and other challenging obstacles, so that we can steer clear of, dodge, or otherwise avoid them
• Design perception systems that can understand and communicate when they are not working well.
• Build software infrastructure to enable algorithmic improvement by leveraging our large-scale fleet data
• Understand the inner workings of the full perception stack, sometimes all the way down to the signal processing at our sensors, to uncover edge cases and make safety determinations
• Identify and mitigate bottlenecks in our evaluation tools and processes
• Work closely with the behaviors team to help inform path planning and real-time decision-making in response to perception outputs

What You'll Bring

• Deep expertise in one or more of the following areas: robot perception; machine learning; classification, phased-array design; signal processing, acoustic beamforming
• Awareness of the theory and practice of modern machine learning techniques
• Experience developing solutions for Sound Event Localization and Detection (SELD), Noise Reduction, or Sound Event Classification
• Strong software engineering skills, with mastery of relevant languages like Python and C++
• Strong skills in linear algebra, coordinate transforms, statistics/probability, and optimization
• Experience building reproducible data pipelines

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $180,000 - $225,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more. Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies. We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!