---
title: 'Perception Lead at Neros Technologies'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/perception-lead-neros-technologies-torrance-dfgdneg4ek6w'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-08'
---

# Perception Lead at Neros Technologies

- **Company:** Neros Technologies
- **Location:** Torrance, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-09-17
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-08
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/nerostechnologies/jobs/5241175007

## Job description

## Who we are

Neros is a defense technology company rebuilding America’s drone industrial base. We design and manufacture high-performance unmanned systems that are tested in combat, iterated at startup speed, and built at massive scale. Our team culture is fast, hands-on, and obsessed with closing the gap between design and deployment.

As drones transform the character of warfare, Neros is delivering the systems the West needs to compete on the modern battlefield and deter the adversaries of democracy. We’re hiring engineers, operators, and builders who want to move fast, take on extreme ownership, and get capability into the hands of warfighters in months, not years.

## What you will be doing

The Perception Lead owns the perception stack across all Neros unmanned aircraft, covering detection, recognition, and image-space target tracking from the sensor through to the target track consumed by state estimation and guidance. This role leads a small perception engineering team while contributing directly to the software, and sets the technical direction for the transition from classical computer vision to learned models as flight data justifies it. The Perception Lead is accountable for perception performance under operationally degraded conditions, including long standoff, low light and thermal imaging, cluttered land and maritime backgrounds, occlusion, and loss of communications.

- Own the architecture, roadmap, and delivery of the perception stack across all vehicle platforms, maintaining a single configurable implementation rather than per-program forks
- Lead and grow the perception engineering team through hiring, mentorship, and technical review, while continuing to contribute directly as an engineer
- Deliver detection, recognition, and image-space tracking that hold a designated target and re-acquire it after loss, in clutter, glare, low light, occlusion, and degraded link conditions
- Define the perception output contract, including calibrated confidence and explicit signaling of suppressed or degraded detection, and set detection operating points jointly with the state estimation and engagement authorization owners
- Drive the progression from classical computer vision to learned detection and classification, determining when flight data demonstrates that a learned component outperforms the deployed baseline, defining the evaluation criteria and regression cases that decision rests on, and retaining a deterministic fallback
- Own deployment of perception software to constrained onboard compute, including accuracy and latency trade-offs, optimization for embedded accelerators, and compliance with end-to-end latency budgets

You should have the following

- 6+ years developing production computer vision or perception software, including 2+ years leading a team or a technical program as a tech lead or engineering manager, with continued hands-on technical contribution
- Demonstrated delivery of perception software onto a physical system operating in an uncontrolled outdoor environment, such as unmanned aircraft, ground robotics, autonomous vehicles, or aerospace platforms
- Expert proficiency in C++ and Python, including production experience under real-time or resource-constrained requirements
- Depth in both classical and learned perception, spanning correlation, template and optical-flow tracking, feature matching and data association, alongside modern detection and classification networks
- Experience deploying neural networks to embedded accelerators such as NVIDIA Jetson and TensorRT, Qualcomm, Hailo, or equivalent, including quantization and characterization of the resulting accuracy and latency trade-off
- Working knowledge of EO and IR/thermal imaging, camera calibration, and sensor characteristics, with experience in small-object detection at long range, in low light, or under high dynamic range
- Experience defining perception evaluation, including dataset and labeling requirements, detection and tracking metrics such as precision, recall, track continuity and identity switches, and regression testing against logged flight or field data
- Experience selecting detection thresholds and operating points against an explicit cost of false positives versus missed detections in a safety-critical or mission-critical system
- Familiarity with sensor timing and synchronization, coordinate frames, and uncertainty representation at the interface to state estimation and navigation

## Nice to Have

- Experience selecting and integrating thermal/LWIR sensors, including the imaging trade-offs and procurement constraints that come with them
- Experience building or operating a data engine for a fleet, covering large-scale log capture, indexing and search, dataset versioning, and labeling operations that feed model training
- Working familiarity with state estimation and sensor fusion, such as visual-inertial odometry or Kalman filtering, sufficient to reason fluently across the boundary between perception and navigation
- Experience with flight test or field test operations, including instrumented test articles, range operations, and log recovery

US Salary Range

$201,000 – $281,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are considered part of Neros' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

## About Neros Technologies

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: A defense technology company building combat-proven, attritable drones and unmanned systems to deliver asymmetric advantage for Western military forces at scale.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: Los Angeles, California, United States (El Segundo area)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Soren Monroe‑Anderson (CEO) and Olaf Hichwa (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing
- **Target customers**: U.S. Department of Defense (Army, Marine Corps), allied nations (Ukraine, UK), and NATO partners – B2G / government.
- **Mission statement**: “Building unmanned superiority. At scale. In America.” The company was founded to onshore the manufacturing of drones critical to a modern arsenal and close the gap between design and deployment.

## Products & Services
Neros designs and manufactures high-performance unmanned aerial systems (UAS) with a focus on first‑person view (FPV) attritable drones, ground control stations, radios, and supporting software.
- **Archer Strike FPV**: A kinetic‑enabled FPV drone for lethal effects at range in contested environments. Combat‑proven, BlueUAS certified, and selected for the U.S. Army’s PBAS program.
- **Archer**: General‑purpose FPV drone built for modular payloads and resilient communications; also available as the **Archer Fiber** variant (fiber‑optic control link for jamming resistance, launched Dec 2025 in partnership with Kela Technologies).
- **Longbow / Crossbow**: Ground control stations – Longbow is a maximum‑range stationary GCS; Crossbow is a tactical GCS enabling electronic warfare resistance at range.
- **APEX (Adaptive Payload Exchange)**: An open‑source drone‑to‑payload integration standard (released May 2026) with commitments from Northrop Grumman and others.
- **Software**: Flight control, autonomy, and manufacturing‑support software. Custom flight computer with integrated sensor suite, designed for rapid iteration and software‑defined hardware.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – **$120.9M** raised to date (Seed $10.9M, Series A $35M, Series B $75M)
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Sequoia Capital (led Series B), Vy Capital, Cantos (led Seed); Kela Technologies (Archer Fiber), Northrop Grumman (APEX), DARPA (AI Grand Prix hardware provider)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Selected by U.S. Army for Purpose‑Built Attritable Systems (PBAS) program (one of three vendors) targeting up to 1M drones over two years.
  - 6,000‑unit export deal to Ukraine.
  - Established Neros Technologies UK with up to £10M investment over five years; manufacturing hub in Swindon.
  - Headcount growth: +355% YoY (approx. 75–88 employees); 52 active job postings as of mid‑2026.
  - Open‑sourced APEX standard to create ecosystem lock‑in.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Vertically integrated U.S. manufacturing** with a secure, onshored supply chain – founded specifically to rebuild the American drone industrial base.
- **Combat‑proven systems** (Ukraine, live‑fire testing) in high‑tempo electronic warfare environments.
- **BlueUAS certified** – compliance with NDAA and U.S. government standards.
- **Fiber‑optic control link** (Archer Fiber) that is immune to RF jamming – a unique differentiation in contested spectrum.
- **Open‑source payload standard (APEX)** to drive adoption and ecosystem dependence.
- **Rapid iteration culture** – “engineer at the speed of modern conflict” with continuous battlefield feedback.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale production**: CEO has publicly stated a target of 10,000+ drones per month; PBAS award and UK hub are key enablers.
- **International expansion**: Establish sovereign manufacturing in the UK (Swindon) to supply British Armed Forces and NATO partners.
- **Autonomy advancement**: Hiring Head of Autonomy, autonomy simulation engineers, and computer vision engineers to mature software‑defined capabilities.
- **Ecosystem building**: Promote APEX as an industry standard to lock in partners and expand market reach.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “Fast, hands‑on, and obsessed with closing the gap between design and deployment.” Emphasizes extreme ownership, rapid iteration, and real‑world impact. Attracts talent from SpaceX, Anduril, Skydio, and Relativity Space.
- **Work model**: On‑site in Torrance (CA), with a Tennessee office (Advanced Manufacturing) and Ukraine office. UK hub (Swindon) also hiring. Roles include engineering, manufacturing, autonomy, RF, IT, and business development.
- **Notable perks / engineering culture**: Build products that are actually tested in combat; startup speed with mission‑focused seriousness; opportunity to shape the future of attritable drone warfare. Strong preference for builders, not watchers.

## Sources
1. [neros.tech](https://www.neros.tech/)
2. [Greenhouse Careers Page](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/nerostechnologies)
3. [LinkedIn Company Profile](https://www.linkedin.com/company/neros-tech)
4. [Built In Neros Technologies](https://builtin.com/company/neros-technologies)
5. [robotics.press Company Profile](https://robotics.press/news/neros-technologies-company-profile/)

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