VLM & VFM Forward Deployed Engineer

Job description

About Matroid Matroid is a full-service computer vision company that has developed an end-to-end platform allowing enterprise customers to rapidly train and deploy automated visual inspection on imagery, including EO, IR, X-Ray, CT, OCT, and others. Founded in 2016 by a Stanford professor, Matroid serves a broad and rapidly growing customer base across manufacturing, automotive, logistics, aerospace, data center infrastructure, and security. We’re looking for a Vision Language Model (VLM) & Visual Foundation Model (VFM) Forward Deployed Engineer to operate at the forefront of visual and multi-modal intelligence deployment in industry, building best-in-class AI systems that leverage vision-centric and vision-language models to solve a broad range of challenging real-world use cases, such as defect inspection, anomaly detection, assembly verification, process and safety monitoring, multi-modal understanding, retrieval, and reasoning over large collections of images, videos, operational data. You’ll be working at our new office in downtown Palo Alto, just a five-minute walk from the Caltrain station and a nine-minute walk from Stanford University. What you’ll be doing Train and deploy state-of-the-art vision-centric and vision-language models across a broad range of industrial domains, including manufacturing, automotive, logistics, aerospace, data center infrastructure, security, and more. Deploy end-to-end CV systems across a range of environments (cloud, edge, hybrid). Define benchmarks and perform quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the AI systems, including accuracy, reliability, latency, throughput, and/or robustness, and then iterate to meet production requirements. Design and develop industrial-grade imaging systems for high-quality, consistent data collection. Integrate Matroid into customer workflows and systems, such as manufacturing execution systems, PLCs, SCADA systems, quality management systems, safety alert systems, and video management systems, with common industrial protocols. Act as the technical expert, advising on all matters from technical scoping of engagements to model adaptation, deployment architecture, evaluation, integration, and customer enablement. Empower customers with AI by designing and leading product training sessions, technical workshops, and deployment playbooks. How you’ll be doing it You will be a computer vision and multi-modal AI guru, intelligently translating real-world business problems into performant computer vision and/or vision language solutions. You will be a SOTA model adapter, selecting, fine-tuning, prompting, evaluating, and orchestrating the right models for the task at hand. You will be a product expert, deeply understanding Matroid’s platform and applying the right features, models, workflows, and integrations to solve customer problems. You will be a customer advocate, understanding customers’ operational requirements and relaying feedback to the broader Matroid team to drive customer-centric development. You will be an AI orchestrator, integrating robust and efficient deep learning systems with third-party systems to deliver real-world impact. You will operate in a collaborative yet highly autonomous environment that isn’t bogged down by unnecessary meetings or project management overhead. You will learn a lot along the way, diving into new technologies and the world of computer vision and multi-modal AI, both on your own and during frequent company tech talks. What you bring to the table Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or another technical field. Experience working with modern visual recognition models, including object detection, segmentation, tracking, action recognition, anomaly detection, and/or vision-language models for multi-modal understanding, reasoning, and retrieval. Strong Python coding skills, with the ability to build reliable systems that interact with various models, APIs, databases, customer infrastructure, and production workflows. Experience with popular machine learning and computer vision frameworks and tools, such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, Hugging Face, Numpy, OpenCV, or similar technologies. Strong ability to evaluate AI systems rigorously, including designing benchmarks, analyzing failure modes, and improving model performance through data, prompts, architecture, or workflow design. Solid oral, written, presentation, collaboration, and interpersonal communication skills. Adept at communicating with both technical and commercial audiences. Bonus points if... Graduate degree with a concentration in computer vision, artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, or related fields. Previous work experience in forward-deployed engineering, field engineering, professional services, consulting, solutions engineering, or another customer-facing technical role. Experience deploying AI systems in industrial, manufacturing, aerospace, logistics, security, or other operational environments. Experience with complex computer vision and vision language tasks, like spatial-temporal reasoning, open-world visual recognition, 3D visual understanding/reconstruction, or agentic workflows. Experience with high-growth technology startups. What we offer in return Competitive pay and equity. The chance to constantly work on stimulating intellectual challenges. Gym membership reimbursement. Free lunch, healthy drinks, and snacks every day. Medical, dental, and vision insurance with 100% paid premiums. A flexible schedule that leaves time for all of your other interests. A budget for whatever hardware or software will make you most effective. Resources to learn about the cutting edge of software engineering, computer vision, VLMs, LLMs, and multi-modal AI. You’ll be working at our new office in downtown Palo Alto, just a five-minute walk from the Caltrain station. Matroid is committed to creating a diverse work environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law.