Computer Vision & AI Engineer - N3XT Interceptor C‑UAS (m/f/d)

<h3>About the Role</h3><p>At Quantum Systems, we are building highly autonomous interceptor systems that must perceive, decide, and act under extreme latency, motion, and environmental constraints.</p><p>We are looking for a Computer Vision &amp; AI Engineer to drive the perception stack of our Counter-UAS interceptor platform. You will work on low-latency camera pipelines, small-object detection, object tracking, sensor fusion, visual odometry, precision landing, camera calibration, embedded inference, and data pipelines for training and validation.</p><p>This role is suited for someone with a strong academic or practical background in computer vision, AI, robotics, or perception systems. A Master’s degree is expected; a PhD is a strong plus. We are open to ambitious early-career candidates if they bring strong technical depth, practical implementation skills, and the ability to own complex perception problems.</p><p>Your Mission</p><p>You will develop the vision and AI pipeline that turns raw camera data into actionable perception outputs for autonomous flight. This includes low-latency detection and tracking, motion-aware vision, sensor fusion with inertial data, 3D direction-vector estimation, GPS-denied navigation, and precision landing support.</p><p style=";"></p><h4 style=";"><strong>What is your Day to Day Mission:</strong></h4><ul><li><p>Bring up, optimize, and maintain high-performance camera pipelines, including CSI camera interfaces, raw image access, buffering, synchronization, and latency reduction.</p></li><li><p>Develop detection algorithms for small and difficult-to-see objects in moving and rotating camera images.</p></li><li><p>Combine machine learning and classical computer vision approaches where appropriate.</p></li><li><p>Fuse inertial data, motion information, and visual data to improve detection and tracking in moving image sequences.</p></li><li><p>Build object tracking pipelines that can switch from initial detection to low-latency tracking once a target has been acquired.</p></li><li><p>Optimize perception pipelines for embedded execution on NVIDIA Jetson platforms.</p></li><li><p>Work toward high frame-rate processing targets in the range of 100–300 FPS, where technically feasible.</p></li><li><p>Use camera intrinsics and extrinsics to transform image-space detections into 3D direction vectors or other navigation-relevant outputs.</p></li><li><p>Work on GPS-denied navigation concepts using visual odometry, including approaches with forward-facing camera views rather than only downward-looking cameras.</p></li><li><p>Develop visual support for precision landing, including height estimation, velocity estimation, and motion-state estimation from limited camera perspectives.</p></li><li><p>Build and maintain the data pipeline from onboard recordings to cloud storage, preprocessing, annotation, dataset generation, training, validation, and benchmarking.</p></li><li><p>Work with annotation tools such as SuperAnnotate, CVAT, Label Studio, or comparable systems.</p></li><li><p>Benchmark and evaluate different model and algorithm families, including approaches such as CenterNet, SuperPoint, SuperGlue, optical flow, feature tracking, object detection, and lightweight embedded models.</p></li><li><p>Build deployment pipelines using ONNX, TensorRT, custom inference runners, or comparable embedded inference tooling.</p></li><li><p>Collaborate closely with autonomy, flight control, embedded software, test, and systems engineering teams.</p></li></ul><br /><br /><h4><strong>What You Bring to the Team</strong></h4><ul><li><p>Master’s degree or PhD in computer vision, AI, robotics, machine learning, electrical engineering, computer science, aerospace engineering, or a comparable technical field.</p></li><li><p>Strong understanding of computer vision fundamentals, camera geometry, feature detection, object detection, tracking, calibration, and image-space to 3D transformations.</p></li><li><p>Practical experience implementing computer vision or machine learning pipelines in <strong>Python and C++</strong>.</p></li><li><p>Experience with embedded inference, ideally on <strong>NVIDIA Jetson</strong>, CUDA, TensorRT, ONNX, GStreamer, V4L2, or similar technologies.</p></li><li><p>Ability to read, understand, and implement ideas from current research papers.</p></li><li><p>Understanding of latency, throughput, profiling, memory movement, and real-time constraints.</p></li><li><p>Experience with dataset creation, annotation workflows, training/validation splits, metrics, and benchmarking.</p></li><li><p>Strong mathematical intuition and willingness to debug both algorithms and real-world sensor data.</p></li><li><p>Ability to take ownership of a technical area and drive it from research prototype to flight-test-ready software.</p><ul><li><p>Experience with UAV perception, robotics perception, visual odometry, SLAM, sensor fusion, or tracking systems.</p></li><li><p>Experience with IMU-camera fusion, ego-motion compensation, rolling-shutter effects, or high-frame-rate cameras.</p></li><li><p>Experience with precision landing, visual navigation, or GPS-denied navigation.</p></li><li><p>Experience building cloud-based ML training and validation pipelines.</p></li><li><p>Publications, thesis work, GitHub projects, demos, or competition results in computer vision, robotics, AI, or autonomous systems.</p><p style=";"></p></li></ul></li></ul><h4><strong>Why Join Quantum-Systems?</strong></h4><ul><li><p>Be at the forefront of <strong>next-generation Defence innovation</strong>.</p></li><li><p>Work in a fast-paced, agile environment where your ideas make an impact.</p></li><li><p>Collaborate with a team of industry pioneers who are ambitious, bold, and visionary.</p></li><li><p>Opportunities for individual and professional growth in a globally recognized organization.</p></li></ul><p style=";"></p><p><strong>About us:</strong></p><p style=";">Quantum Systems specializes in the development, design, and production of small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS). The company’s range of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) sUAS are built to maximize range and versatility and to provide operators with a seamless user experience. By integrating cutting-edge software capabilities, like edge computing and real-time AI-powered data processing, Quantum Systems is building next-generation UAS for clients in the defense, security, and public sectors.</p><p style=";"></p><p style=";"></p><h4><strong>How to Apply</strong></h4><p>Please include as your cover letter:</p><ul><li><p>A detailed description of your <strong>hands-on projects</strong>, including photos, GitHub links, and videos, drawings. </p></li></ul><p>Find more <a href="https://www.arbeitnow.com/english-speaking-jobs">English Speaking Jobs in Germany</a> on Arbeitnow</a>