--- title: 'CV/ML Camera Test Engineer at Specter' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/cv-ml-camera-test-engineer-specter-san-francisco-xfz6n3t10vk8' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-19' --- # CV/ML Camera Test Engineer at Specter - **Company:** Specter - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-15 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-19 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/specter/a22f7144-f49a-453e-b291-af752e1f9198 ## Job description Company Background Specter's mission is to help automate the physical world. Today, we build video sensors with state-of-the-art AI agents that answer any question, anywhere in their environments. Our systems can automatically detect and reason about any physical activity captured on camera, from security incidents (e.g. perimeter intrusion, theft, LPR), to safety monitoring (e.g. PPE detection, injured people), to operational efficiency (e.g. material tracking, congestion monitoring). We offer both long range wireless (1km range) and wired sensor variants to suit any deployment. Our co-founders Xerxes and Philip are passionate about empowering our partners in the fast approaching world of physical AI and robotics. We are a small, fast growing team who hail from Anduril, Tesla, Uber, and the U.S. Special Forces. ## The Role Specter is hiring a hands-on CV/ML camera test engineer to measure how camera and optics choices affect the performance of our AI models. Working with our Optics & Camera Engineering Lead, this individual will turn experiment plans into lab and field setups, run the campaigns, push the data through our CV/ML models and report what changed and why. The work is scientific at its core: reason from first principles about optics, sensor physics and illumination, form a hypothesis, design a controlled experiment to test it, and let the data decide. This individual will collaborate with camera, CV/ML, software, hardware and field teams to put data behind every camera decision. Responsibilities: - Form testable hypotheses from first principles (optics, sensor physics, radiometry and illumination), and design controlled experiments with defined variables, controls, sample sizes and success criteria before collecting data. - Execute experiments comparing sensors, lenses, ISP settings, IR illumination, focus and window conditions, and measure their effect on detection, recognition and LPR performance at range. - Build and maintain lab and outdoor test setups, including targets at known distances, controlled lighting and low-light scenes, IR illumination and chamber runs across temperature. - Run field data-collection campaigns across sites, times of day, lighting and weather, keeping conditions, metadata and ground truth consistent. - Run captured video through existing CV/ML models and evaluation tools, and compute model metrics alongside image-quality measurements (MTF, SNR, distortion, pixels on target). - Script captures, camera settings, data pipelines and analysis in Python and shell on embedded Linux devices so every run is reproducible. - Isolate the cause of performance changes across optics, sensor, ISP, illumination and environment, using statistical analysis rather than anecdote, and write clear reports that state confidence, limitations and recommendations. - Support camera validation (focus stability, thermal, condensation, IR range) through EVT, DVT and PVT. Qualifications: - Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment and being scrappy. - Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent. - 2+ years of experience in hardware test, validation or experimental work. - Strong Linux command line proficiency (required), including SSH, logs, file and process management and shell scripting on embedded devices. - Proficient in Python for scripting, data processing and analysis. - A scientific, first-principles mindset: you reason from the physics to predict results, design controlled experiments to test those predictions, and change your mind when the data says so. - Hands-on with test setups and lab equipment, and comfortable doing outdoor field work, including at night and in bad weather. - Strong grounding in statistics and experimental design, including hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, variance, sample sizing and trends across campaigns. - Exceptional organization and communication skills (both written and oral). - No CV/ML background required. You'll use our existing models and evaluation tools and learn the rest on the job. ## Nice to Have - Experience with cameras, image sensors, lenses or image-quality testing (MTF, SNR, low light, IR). - Exposure to computer vision tools (OpenCV) or ML evaluation metrics such as precision and recall. - Experience with video tooling such as FFmpeg, GStreamer or V4L2. - Experience with thermal chambers, reliability or production test. - Background in physics, optics or a research lab environment. Tool Proficiency - Linux command line and shell scripting (required). - Python with NumPy, pandas and plotting libraries. - Git for scripts and test procedures. - Imatest or equivalent image-quality tools (preferred). ## About Specter ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Specter builds and deploys long-range wireless sensing networks with AI-powered real-time alerts and semantic search, creating the perception layer for the physical world. - **Entity Type**: Private (funding stage not publicly disclosed) - **Headquarters**: Not publicly available (likely US based on website language and job postings) - **Founded**: Not publicly available - **Founders**: Not publicly available ## Core Business - Primary industries: Physical security, critical infrastructure monitoring, industrial IoT, real-time situational awareness - Target customers: Enterprise and government – including energy companies, data centers, construction firms, ports, stadiums, industrial facilities, and campuses - Mission statement: "Creating a Software Defined Physical World" – providing instant awareness through real-time alerts, semantic search, and a map-based view of every event ## Products & Services - **Specter Platform**: A SaaS-based physical intelligence platform that ingests data from long-range wireless sensors (video, thermal, acoustic) and applies general AI (natural language alerts) to detect events such as unauthorized access, safety hazards, equipment anomalies, fires, spills, and perimeter breaches. Features include semantic search, live and historical event detection, and complete situational awareness dashboards. - **Long-Range Wireless Sensing Network**: Proprietary hardware and software for rugged, wide-area coverage without trenching – deployed across refineries, deserts, offshore platforms, construction sites, and other harsh environments. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Annual revenue not publicly available; company is actively hiring (Software Engineer – Systems listing) and has a live product across multiple industry verticals. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly available - **Growth Signals**: Recent website updates as of June 2026; expanding to new use cases (energy, data centers, construction, ports, stadiums); job openings indicate scaling engineering team. ## Competitive Advantages - **Long-range wireless sensing** that eliminates blind spots without trenching or on-site personnel – a differentiator for remote and harsh environments. - **General AI with natural language alerts** – users set and query alerts in plain English, lowering the barrier for security and operations teams. - **Multimodal sensing** (video, thermal, acoustic) combined with real-time analytics for high-fidelity event detection (e.g., PPE compliance, spills, equipment theft, person-down incidents). - Focus on **critical infrastructure** where downtime or security gaps carry high stakes, creating deep vertical-specific moats. ## Strategic Focus - Expanding horizontal deployment across energy, data centers, construction, logistics, and campus security. - Deepening AI capabilities through real-time semantic search and event detection to replace traditional CCTV monitoring. - Building a “software-defined physical world” that unifies disparate sensors into a single intelligent layer. ## Why Work Here - Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI + IoT systems that monitor real-world infrastructure at scale. - Engineering culture likely emphasizes distributed systems, computer vision, edge computing, and high-reliability software (based on job description for Software Engineer – Systems). - Fast-paced startup environment with a clear product-market fit across multiple verticals. - Remote/hybrid policy not explicitly stated; job posting does not specify location, but likely offers flexibility. ## Sources 1. [specter.co](https://specter.co/) 2. [specter.co/product](https://specter.co/product) 3. [specter.co/industries](https://specter.co/industries) 4. [specter.co/features](https://specter.co/features) 5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com - Software Engineer – Systems](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/specter/fe26a690-7934-46f4-bce2-8d8c5495a0dc) ## Other roles at Specter - [Optics & Camera Engineering Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/optics-camera-engineering-lead-specter-san-francisco-021ech8bvbse) — San Francisco, CA - [Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/manufacturing-engineer-specter-san-francisco-g75553wbxwx6) — San Francisco, CA - [Founding Customer Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-customer-operations-lead-specter-san-francisco-4e0jb5pg08bh) — San Francisco, CA - [Wireless Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/wireless-software-engineer-specter-san-francisco-zvjchm89fzv0) — San Francisco, CA - [Software Engineer - Applied AI](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-applied-ai-specter-san-francisco-p7er9310dx06) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Antenna Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-antenna-engineer-specter-san-francisco-xea2760wvrkw) — San Francisco, CA - [Software Engineer — Fleet](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-fleet-specter-san-francisco-5tm2vh5drfnf) — San Francisco, CA - [Platform Site Reliability Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/platform-site-reliability-engineer-specter-san-francisco-c9mhsvjd32qq) — San Francisco, CA - [Founding Deployment Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-deployment-strategist-specter-san-francisco-81ba238x3y8m) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Accounting Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-accounting-manager-specter-san-francisco-c560c7hymx09) — San Francisco, CA