Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Perception

About the role

Who we are Atoms is building the machines that power the next era of progress. Over the last decade, software has transformed the digital world. But the physical world, where food is made, minerals are mined, goods are moved, and industries are run, remains far less intelligent, far less efficient, and far more constrained. We’re changing that. Atoms builds Physical AI— real-world robots for the industries that move civilization forward, starting with food, mining, and transport. Our systems are designed to understand, predict, and control the real world with precision, turning complex physical operations into something more reliable, more scalable, and more productive. This work requires more than robotics. It requires deep integration across hardware, software, AI, operations, manufacturing, and real estate. We don’t just build machines in a lab. We deploy them into real environments, operate them, learn from them, and improve them until they work at scale. We are roboticists, engineers, operators, and builders. We believe the next great technology companies will not only transform information, but the physical systems that shape everyday life. If you want to work on hard problems with real-world impact, join us. About the role As a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer focused on Perception, you will be one of the foundational technical leaders of Atoms' AI organization. You will help define how our machines transform raw sensor data into rich representations of the physical world. You'll work across camera, LiDAR, radar, audio, and other sensor modalities to build perception systems capable of operating in complex, dynamic real-world environments. This is not simply a role focused on improving an existing perception stack. You will have the opportunity to help determine what that stack should become. You will work closely with AI research, robotics, autonomy, and engineering leaders to develop perception architectures that connect traditional perception capabilities with emerging approaches in world models and foundation models for physical AI. This is a deeply technical individual contributor role with significant influence over Atoms' technical direction. What you'll do - Define and help build the technical architecture for Atoms' next-generation perception systems. - Develop machine learning systems that transform multimodal sensor inputs—including camera, LiDAR, radar, audio, and other signals—into useful representations of the physical environment. - Advance approaches to multi-sensor and multimodal fusion across complex real-world operating environments. - Design and develop deep learning architectures for problems such as detection, segmentation, tracking, classification, scene understanding, and 3D perception. - Explore how modern foundation models and world models can complement or replace components of traditional perception pipelines. - Build perception systems designed to serve downstream reasoning, planning, and action models. - Make architectural decisions spanning data, model design, training, evaluation, inference, and deployment. - Develop systems that balance model quality with the latency, efficiency, reliability, and compute constraints required for real-world machines. - Establish evaluation methodologies and metrics that accurately measure perception performance in the environments where our systems operate. - Partner closely with researchers and engineers working across world models, action models, robotics, autonomy, and ML infrastructure. - Provide technical leadership across the organization through architecture reviews, mentorship, technical direction, and hands-on engineering. - Help establish the technical bar for the growing perception organization and participate in identifying and assessing exceptional engineering and research talent. What we're looking for - Deep expertise in machine learning and computer vision, with substantial experience building sophisticated perception systems. - Strong understanding of modern deep learning architectures and their application to visual and multimodal perception. - Experience working with one or more real-world sensor modalities such as cameras, LiDAR, radar, audio, depth sensors, or related systems. - Experience with sensor fusion, multimodal learning, 3D perception, scene understanding, or related areas. - Strong understanding of the full ML lifecycle, including data strategy, training, model architecture, evaluation, optimization, and deployment. - Experience designing ML systems that operate under real-world latency, compute, reliability, and safety constraints. - Strong software engineering fundamentals and the ability to remain deeply hands-on in Python and/or C++. - Demonstrated ability to make consequential technical and architectural decisions in ambiguous problem spaces. - A track record of technical leadership and influencing engineering direction beyond your immediate projects or team. - Ability to communicate complex technical ideas clearly and collaborate across research and engineering disciplines. Why join us At Atoms, you’ll work on one of the defining challenges of our time—bringing automation into the physical world to drive real, lasting impact. We exist to uncover valuable unknown truths and turn them into progress, which means constantly pushing beyond what’s known and building what doesn’t yet exist. The work is ambitious and often challenging, but it’s grounded in a shared sense of purpose and a team committed to seeing it through together. Our work only matters if it serves others, and we know that meaningful progress depends on the trust of the people we serve and the strength of our team—so we invest in both, creating an environment where you can do your best work and grow. What else you need to know This role is based in our San Francisco office. Atoms is a company driven by invention and continuous change - we are constantly reimagining our industries, building new products, and refining how we operate. We do our best work together. That’s why all of our office-based teams work onsite, five days a week. The base salary range for this role is $275,000 - $321,000 per year. Actual compensation will be determined on an individual basis and may vary depending on experience, skills, and qualifications. Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package. You may also be eligible for equity awards. Benefits Summary (USA Full-Time Exempt Employees): - Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability, and Life Insurance - Flexible Spending Account / Health Savings Account Options - 401(k) - Equity - Sick Time, Unlimited Flexible Time Off, and Paid Holidays - Paid Parental Leave - Pre-Tax Commuter Benefit Plan - Team lunch in our SoMa office every Tuesday and Thursday Benefits are subject to change at the company's discretion. Atoms accepts applications on an ongoing basis. Ready to join us as we serve those who serve others? #LI-Onsite