Autonomy Engineer - Perception Optimization
May Mobility
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
USD 175k-215k / year
Posted on Jun 21, 2025
May Mobility is transforming cities through autonomous technology to create a safer, greener, more accessible world. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, May develops and deploys autonomous vehicles (AVs) powered by our innovative Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology that literally reimagines the way AVs think.
Our vehicles do more than just drive themselves - they provide value to communities, bridge public transit gaps and move people where they need to go safely, easily and with a lot more fun. We’re building the world’s best autonomy system to reimagine transit by minimizing congestion, expanding access and encouraging better land use in order to foster more green, vibrant and livable spaces. Since our founding in 2017, we’ve given more than 300,000 autonomy-enabled rides to real people around the globe. And we’re just getting started. We’re hiring people who share our passion for building the future, today, solving real-world problems and seeing the impact of their work. Join us.
Job Summary
May Mobility is entering an exciting phase of growth as we expand our first-of-its-kind autonomous shuttle and mobility services across the nation. Launched in 2017 with a strong team of experienced roboticists, perception, behavior, AI, and software engineers with decades of experience fielding robotic systems in the wild, May Mobility is looking to expand its team of perception engineers with a background in robotics or autonomous vehicles.
We are seeking an experienced Senior Engineer or above with deep expertise in perception systems, machine learning, and GPU optimization. As part of our team, you will play a critical role in enhancing perception’s on-vehicle capabilities, ensuring robust performance for real-time applications, and optimizing frameworks for autonomous vehicle perception.
Essential Responsibilities
- Work closely with across functional teams to co-define software and system requirements, analyze trade-offs, and shape the future generation of compute platforms.
- Collaboratively integrate perception algorithms and machine learning models with vehicle hardware and software, ensuring seamless operation within autonomous driving systems.
- Collaborate with ML infrastructure teams to develop and optimize distributed training infrastructure, automate deployment pipelines, and enhance system reliability and performance.
- Conduct rigorous testing and validation of perception algorithms in both simulated and real-world environments to ensure robustness, reliability, and safety.
- Develop and optimize perception stack software using CUDA and GPU programming to accelerate computationally intensive tasks and maximize efficiency.
- Lead the efforts of ptimize machine learning models for runtime efficiency, scalability, and performance across GPU, TPU, and CPU architectures, ensuring adaptability to various vehicle platforms.
- Stay at the forefront of machine learning, GPU programming, and autonomous driving technologies, integrating the latest advancements into the development process.
- Actively participate in feature design, code reviews, debugging, and issue resolution, driving improvements in perception software performance.
Skills and Abilities
Success in this role typically requires the following competencies:
- Strong programming skills in C++ and Python with a deep understanding of software optimization.
- Extensive experience in optimizing ML models for resource-constrained inference, including custom operations, model pruning, quantization, and knowledge distillation.
- Expertise in GPU programming, particularly CUDA, for high-performance computing and efficient parallel processing.
- Proficiency in model-platform co-optimization, ensuring efficiency across GPU, TPU, and CPU architectures.
- Hands-on experience with real-time data processing and advanced optimization techniques.
- Strong background in ML model inference optimization, balancing accuracy and latency for real-time applications.
- Familiarity with machine learning frameworks and libraries for perception-related tasks.
- Excellent problem-solving skills with a detail-oriented approach and a rigorous testing mindset to ensure system reliability.
Qualifications and Experience
Candidates most successful in this role typically hold the following qualifications or comparable knowledge or experience:
Required
- Master’s or PhD degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field with strong mathematical and engineering foundations.
- A minimum of 3+ years in Senior engineer roles of GPU programing/optimization using CUDA or similar techniques for perception algorithms and models
- Proficiency in C/C++/Python and experience in software development in Linux environments.
- Strong experience with GPU programming, CUDA, and real-time data processing.
- Experience optimizing ML models for runtime efficiency.
- Experience with 3D computer vision and point cloud processing.
Desirable
- Expertise in ML/DL model optimization for real-time applications with limited compute resources.
- Strong contributions to deployed robotic systems, demonstrating field-proven capabilities in perception evaluation and testing.
- Experience with robotics middleware such as ROS (Robot Operating System).
- Knowledge of vehicle dynamics and control systems.
- Experience deploying ML models efficiently on embedded hardware.
- Familiarity with hardware acceleration techniques beyond GPUs, such as TPUs and FPGAs.
Physical Requirements
- Standard office working conditions which includes but is not limited to:
- Prolonged sitting
- Prolonged standing
- Prolonged computer use
Travel required? - Moderate: 11%-25%
Salary Range
$175,000—$215,000 USD
Benefits and Perks
- Comprehensive healthcare suite including medical, dental, vision, life, and disability plans. Domestic partners who have been residing together at least one year are also eligible to participate.
- Health Savings and Flexible Spending Healthcare and Dependent Care Accounts available.
- Rich retirement benefits, including an immediately vested employer safe harbor match.
- Generous paid parental leave as well as a phased return to work.
- Flexible vacation policy in addition to paid company holidays.
- Total Wellness Program providing numerous resources for overall wellbeing
Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and/or people of color are less likely to apply to a job unless they meet every qualification. At May Mobility, we’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workforce, so if you’re excited about this role but your previous experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway! You may be the perfect candidate for this or another role at May.
Want to learn more about our culture & benefits? Check out our website!
May Mobility is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants for employment will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, genetics or any other legally protected basis. Below, you have the opportunity to share your preferred gender pronouns, gender, ethnicity, and veteran status with May Mobility to help us identify areas of improvement in our hiring and recruitment processes. Completion of these questions is entirely voluntary. Any information you choose to provide will be kept confidential, and will not impact the hiring decision in any way. If you believe that you will need any type of accommodation, please let us know.
Note to Recruitment Agencies: May Mobility does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Furthermore, May Mobility does not pay placement fees for candidates submitted by any agency other than its approved partners.