Robotics careers · Career guide

Computer vision engineerwhat the job involves, pay and who’s hiring

There are 225 open computer vision engineer roles on Robotics Connected today, at 118 employers. Where roles give pay, the middle figure is $228K a year. Below is what the work involves, the skills employers ask for, how people get in, and the roles open now.

By Olivier Ayache · Figures from the jobs board, updated
225
open computer vision engineer roles
118
employers hiring
$228K
middle pay a year, from 43 roles
10%
can be done remotely

What does a computer vision engineer do?

Perception engineers give robots their sense of the world. They turn camera, lidar and radar data into something a robot can act on: where objects are, what they are, where the robot itself is and what is likely to move next.

The work spans classical computer vision, sensor fusion and, increasingly, deep learning, and it is central to self-driving vehicles, drones, warehouse robots and humanoids alike.

Also advertised as: Perception engineer, Computer vision engineer, Sensor fusion engineer, Localisation engineer.

A typical week

  • Training and evaluating models for detection, segmentation or tracking
  • Calibrating sensors and fusing data from several of them
  • Making models run fast enough on the robot's own computer
  • Finding and fixing failures in real-world data

Skills employers ask for

  • Python and C++
  • Deep learning with PyTorch, and classical vision with OpenCV
  • 3D geometry, camera models and SLAM
  • Sensor fusion: cameras, lidar, radar and IMUs
  • Optimising models for edge hardware such as NVIDIA Jetson

How much do computer vision engineers earn?

  • $200K to $292K a year for the middle half, $228K in the middle, from 43 roles paid in USD

These figures come from the 45 of 225 open roles that give pay, taking the middle of each role’s range. Most are in US states where job adverts have to show pay, so they lean towards American salaries; roles in the UK and Europe rarely publish a figure.

Who is hiring computer vision engineers?

The employers with the most open computer vision engineer roles today:

Where are the jobs?

The cities with the most open computer vision engineer roles, each with its own page of robotics jobs:

And by country:

What levels are open?

125 of the 225 roles say their level in the title. They split like this:

Entry-level roles are scarce across robotics, not only in this one. I looked at why, and what I’d suggest if you’re starting out, in this article on the entry-level gap.

How to become a computer vision engineer

Many perception engineers have a master's or PhD in computer vision, robotics or machine learning, though strong engineers with a bachelor's and good projects are hired too. I'd suggest a project that runs on real sensor data rather than only a benchmark, since the hard part of the job is the messiness of the real world.

If you’re early on, the robotics internships and entry-level and graduate roles are the places to start.

Open computer vision engineer jobs

The newest, one an employer:

Search the jobs board for “perception”All Perception & Computer Vision roles

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