Perception Engineer (Edge CV/AI)
at Arlo Industries — Track drones and missiles without radars - Accurate, Passive, Scalable
What the role involves
Company
Arlo Industries is building the sensing infrastructure layer for the drone age.
We build distributed passive optical sensing systems for tracking drones and missiles.
Our systems combine edge AI, optics, and distributed networking to create persistent aerial awareness without relying on traditional emitting radars.
We are a YC-backed defence tech startup operating across the US, Europe, and Ukraine.
Role
You will own core parts of the perception stack: from raw sensor data to real-time detection, classification, tracking, and spatial fusion across distributed sensor nodes.
This is not a research-only role. You will ship systems that operate in real-world environments.
What you will work on
Build and optimise CV/AI pipelines on edge hardware (NVIDIA Jetson, ARM SBCs)
Develop real-time multi-camera tracking and sensor fusion systems
Work on spatial fusion across distributed sensing nodes
Improve performance under noisy, degraded, and adversarial conditions
Optimise inference pipelines using CUDA/TensorRT
Participate in field testing and rapid hardware iteration
You are a strong fit if you
Have shipped real-time CV/ML systems on constrained hardware
Have experience with EO/IR/multispectral sensor systems
Understand sensor fusion, tracking, or 3D spatial reasoning
Are comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
Want to work on real-world defence systems
Bonus
Robotics, UAV, ISR, or defence background
Passive sensing or distributed sensor network experience
Familiarity with RF/comms systems or embedded networking
Compensation
San Francisco, CA: $150k–250k USD
Troy, NY: $140k–200k USD
Helsinki: €85k–140k EUR
Kyiv: $45k–90k USD
What they ask for
About Arlo Industries
Arlo Industries is building a network of sensors that precisely tracks stealthy drones and aerial threats better than radars. This capability does not exist yet because traditional radars are built on past war doctrines designed to protect single, centralised assets. Modern warfare, however, demands wide-area, persistent coverage that is both passive and economically scalable. By utilising a mesh architecture, Arlo Industries unlocks unprecedented asymmetric economics. The network is fundamentally built to scale: the cost of adding sensors grows linearly, but the tracking accuracy increases exponentially, delivering highly resilient, persistent coverage for a fraction of the cost of legacy systems. Deo founded Arlo Industries after spending over 6 years in the Israeli defence ecosystem, where he lived through multiple conflicts and experienced the Iron Dome and other systems in action against ICBMs and the infamous Shahed drones. Learning exactly how these defence systems could be improved after a Shahed exploded close to his apartment, he built Arlo Industries around the core philosophy that conflict should be concise & precise. The people behind Arlo1 includes a PhD in drones and autonomy and military experts. Arlo Industries has actively showcased this technology directly to Ukrainian militaries on the frontlines, as well as to operators across Europe and the USA.
Full Arlo Industries profile