Software Engineer, Perception (Intern) (Autonomous Driving)

TL;DR

Software Engineer, Perception (Intern) (Autonomous Driving): Building and improving perception systems for the hirify.global Driver autonomous vehicle platform with an accent on computer vision, sensor processing, sensor fusion, and machine learning. Focus on designing, implementing, and validating perception modules for object detection, tracking, and scene understanding across camera, LiDAR, and Radar modalities.

South San Francisco - Hybrid

$40 – $60 per hour

Company

Series A startup transforming airport ground handling with autonomous vehicles, backed by top aviation and autonomous driving investors, serving major airlines worldwide.

What you will do

• Design, implement, and test improvements to perception subsystems like object detection, tracking, sensor fusion, or scene understanding.
• Work with conventional and ML-based perception techniques across camera, LiDAR, and Radar.
• Evaluate and validate perception performance using metrics, focusing on robustness in various conditions.
• Collaborate with autonomy team to integrate perception improvements into the full system.
• Stay current with research and propose advancements for the perception stack.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing Master's or higher in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field.
• Prior coursework or projects in Machine Perception, Computer Vision, or ML for Robotics/Autonomous systems.
• Familiarity with PyTorch and TensorRT.
• Strong C++ and Python programming skills.
• Solid math foundation: linear algebra, probability, optimization.
• Experience in Linux environment.
• Excellent communication and collaboration in fast-paced teams.

Nice to have

• Experience with 3D object detection (LiDAR or camera-based).
• Radar experience.
• Sensor fusion across modalities.
• ROS2 familiarity.
• Prior autonomous driving or robotics startup experience.

Culture & Benefits

• High-impact internship with production deployment on real airport vehicles.
• Collaborative environment with Perception and Autonomy teams.
• Hands-on experience in reliability-critical autonomous systems.