Tangram Vision Career Opportunity

Calibration Engineer

$160,000 - $180,000 USD

Fully Remote

NOTE TO APPLICANTS: This position requires a deep knowledge of geometric and classical computer vision techniques. Candidates with professional deep learning experience, but without the prerequisite geometric knowledge, are unlikely to excel in this position.

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Tangram Vision has been awarded a Phase II SBIR from NASA to implement operator-free multi-modal calibration on the lunar surface, a system we're calling AutoCal. Read more about the grant here ( announcement link).

We are looking for qualified candidates to research, implement, and improve AutoCal for both NASA's applications and those of any other robotics and automation system. The ideal Calibration Engineer candidate has real-world calibration experience through robotics, autonomous vehicles, or industry. A successful candidate has not only developed calibration systems and products, but has iterated on and improved that product once deployed. They have worked with multi-modal data from a variety of sensors and systems, and they have implemented odometry solutions from fundamentals.

As MetriCal usage is a prerequisite for AutoCal, candidates should expect to work with and improve all of Tangram Vision's calibration software suites.

How to Apply

Submit your resume to careers@tangramvision.com. Include your name, phone number, and a few reasons why this job appeals to you.

Examples of Things You’ll Work On

• Develop performant calibration algorithms to run on both cloud and low-powered host machines
• Develop algorithms for the purpose of calibrating (intrinsics and extrinsics) various combinations of sensors
• Develop unit and integration tests for all production-critical code
• Participate and contribute to intensive research-backed product proposals
• Improve UX for user-facing products through testing and customer discussion
• Write and contribute to our internal and user-facing product documentation
• Contribute to the Tangram Visions blog with relevant, technical content for a robotics and sensor savvy audience
• Be open to networking/speaker opportunities on behalf of the company:
  • Presentations at local meetups
  • Communications inside and outside of Tangram on progress and projects
• You should expect to travel at least 4 weeks out of the year for company retreats, conferences, and trade shows
• Craft and maintain your User Manual. User Manuals are documents written by you, about you. They're meant to be easy ways for someone else to get to know you and your working style, so that everyone can better understand one another and collaborate more effectively
• Communicate and check-in with each other. Every proposal, piece of documentation, and prototype is meant to be open, malleable, and collaborative. This lets us do our best work while preserving the best aspects of asynchronous work: focus and time. Even so, live communications are encouraged even if it's just to check in on someone’s day
• Do your part in keeping our operations running smoothly

You’ll be a successful candidate if

• You have hit the limits of open-source frameworks for calibration, and hacked your way past (or through) them
• You love performant systems languages, or are excited to learn and contribute through Rust in a real-world setting
• You take the time to evaluate technology options and tradeoffs, and feel certain in your decision-making after evaluation
• You care about contributing to product direction, planning, roadmaps, and postmortems
• You have a willingness to voice your opinions and have pushed for better calibration procedures at your previous place of work or study, or have improved calibration procedures yourself
• You’re able to explain big ideas without technical jargon
• You have exceptional time management, including the ability to manage multiple tasks and projects at once
• You love to learn and can implement what you’ve absorbed, whether it’s through reading textbooks and/or research papers
• You have a strong sense of teamwork
• You believe in inclusivity when working with colleagues with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives

Must-Have Technical Qualifications

In our experience, people with the below experiences would thrive in this role. Our tech stack is shown in parentheses, where applicable; experience with a specific tool is not required for this role.

• At least 4 years of professional experience or the equivalent with the below:
  • A large code architecture written in a performant systems language (we are a Rust shop)
  • Calibration procedures in perception, beyond Zhang’s method
  • Implementing common multi-view geometry or photogrammetry algorithms
  • Non-linear optimization and large matrix mathematics
• Demonstrated experience with common programming optimization strategies
• Demonstrated experience with common sensor datatypes, e.g. image formats, point clouds, gyroscopic data, etc.
• Comfortable working on Linux and using the command-line
• Proficiency with git. You have experience with informative commit messages and keeping a clean git history

Benefits and other Perks

We’re a startup, aren't there supposed to be pool tables and stuff? We have an ever-growing list of items that we’re looking to provide, here’s what we currently offer.

• We value your health and well-being: Tangram Vision covers up to $400 a month of medical plan costs (chances are we have a plan that will be 100% covered for you), and 100% of dental, vision, and ancillary plans (i.e. life insurance, short-term and long-term disability).
  • Employees who choose a medical plan with a health savings account (HSA) also receive a $2,000/year HSA contribution
  • Staff have an unlimited PTO balance, with a recommended 4 weeks off per year (1 week per quarter).
• Remote First, Fully Connected: Tangram Vision is a fully remote company. We have no corporate office, and we coordinate our work across the US and the world.
  • Company retreats every three to four months in fun, unique locations.
  • Weekly team-wide calls keep us connected and grounded
  • Open virtual co-working communications every afternoon
• We understand the importance of financial planning: We offer competitive salaries and equity grants. Employees can choose to adjust their compensation for more/less salary vs. more/less equity.

Interview Process

For this role, the interview process will consist of the steps listed below. The first four steps will be conducted over video calls using Google Meet.

• Phone screen (20 minutes): We learn more about you and your experiences, and we take time to share more about us, Tangram Vision.
• Technical video interview (1 hour): We learn more about your technical knowledge and cover concepts that are important for this role.
• Hands-on coding problem (2 hours): We provide a problem and you write the code to solve it! You use your own computer/IDE/environment and can choose from 2-3 different programming languages. We'll be available for the duration to answer any questions you may have.
• Final Interview (1 hour): We meet with finalists to learn more about your work style and what you're looking for in your next role, team, and leadership.
• Reference check: You send us work references and we talk to them.