Rocket Lab Optical Systems is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer II to support advanced electro-optical (EO/IR) image analysis efforts in Chantilly, VA. This onsite role contributes to Tranche 3 of the U.S. Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) and related programs, with work centered on building deep learning models and the ML infrastructure needed to move from research to operational optical systems.
What you’ll do
- Apply experience to develop solutions for real-world problems
- Design, train, and deploy machine learning models for Optical Systems applications
- Build and maintain ML pipelines for data ingestion, feature engineering, training, and inference
- Partner with other researchers and engineers across artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision
- Run rapid prototyping and enhanced development efforts for integration into operational systems
- Troubleshoot, fix bugs, and maintain existing and newly developed systems
- Stay current with ML research and assess new tools, frameworks, and techniques
What you bring
- Bachelor’s degree plus 8+ years of experience; alternatively, a master’s degree or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, or a related field
- Strong foundation in machine learning, including model selection, architecture, training, validation, testing, and deployment
- Experience building deep learning neural networks for computer vision, image processing, or video analysis, such as object detection, image segmentation, and tracking
- Strong math background, especially linear algebra
- Proficiency in Python
- Hands-on experience with deep learning libraries including Keras, TensorFlow, and PyTorch
- Software engineering fundamentals such as version control, testing, CI/CD, and containerization
- U.S. citizenship is required due to program requirements
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government Security Clearance
Technologies
- Python, Keras, TensorFlow, PyTorch
- CI/CD, containerization
Nice to have
- Proficiency in C/C++/Rust
- Experience curating high-quality, real-world datasets for deep learning model training
- TS/SCI security clearance
Additional information
Rocket Lab Employees must be a U.S. citizen, a lawful U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce as applicable (ITAR). For candidates seeking reasonable accommodation for the application or interview process for a U.S. role, contact Giulia Johnson at g.biow@rocketlabusa.com.
For candidates seeking to work in New Zealand offices, background checks will be conducted prior to employment offers, including nationality checks. Under those regulations, you may be ineligible if you do not hold citizenship of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the European Union, or a country that is part of NATO, or if you hold ineligible dual citizenship or nationality.
Location: Chantilly, VA (onsite). Salary: USD 130,000 - 229,100 per year.
