---
title: 'Senior / Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Perception Mapping at Zoox'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-machine-learning-engineer-perception-mapping-zoox-foster-city-wfhaz96rgwm0'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-15'
---

# Senior / Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Perception Mapping at Zoox

- **Company:** Zoox
- **Location:** Foster City, CA
- **Compensation:** $254k–$350k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2025-12-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-15
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/zoox/4df5862c-edd7-4033-acb8-59ebbfbbb941

## Job description

The Perception team at Zoox is fundamental to our autonomous vehicle technology, creating the understanding of the world for our self-driving robots. We enable safe and efficient navigation in complex environments through sophisticated detection, classification, and tracking systems.

As a software engineer on the perception mapping team, you will be a key contributor to Zoox’s online mapping initiative. You will design, train, validate, and integrate into the stack ML models that detect semantic map elements in the world. Your work will touch on all aspects of ML development, including data gathering, labeling, training, validation, and onboard integration. Your work will enable important milestones to scaling and autonomy capabilities and will be critical to the success of Zoox.

In this role, you will:

- Curate, validate, and label datasets for model training and validation
- Research, implement, and train ML models to perform semantic map element detection
- Closely collaborate with validation teams to formulate and execute model validation pipelines
- Integrate models into the greater onboard autonomy system within compute budgets
- Be a technical leader on the team, maintaining coding and ML development best practices and contributing to architectural decisions

Qualifications:

- MS or PhD or equivalent experience (5+ years) in Computer Science or related field
- Experience in computer vision or robotics
- Experience with training and deploying deep learning models
- Experience with with Python libraries (pytorch, numpy)

Bonus Qualifications:

- Experience with C++
- Experience with CUDA and/or GPU programming
- Experience with mapping related ML techniques

## About Zoox

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zoox is building a fully autonomous, all-electric, purpose-built robotaxi service to give the world a better way to ride.
- **Entity Type**: Private (independent subsidiary of Amazon, acquired in 2020)
- **Headquarters**: Foster City, California, USA (with offices in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, Los Angeles)
- **Founded**: 2014
- **Founders**: Not specified in provided sources

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Autonomous ride‑hailing / Self‑driving electric vehicles
- **Target customers**: B2C – individual riders seeking safe, convenient, and sustainable urban transportation
- **Mission**: “Give the world a better way to ride” – providing safer, cleaner, autonomous ride‑hailing for everyone [zoox.com](https://zoox.com/about)

## Products & Services
- **Zoox Robotaxi**: A purpose‑built, fully autonomous electric vehicle designed from the ground up for ride‑hailing. Features bidirectional driving, four‑wheel steering, and no steering wheel or pedals. The service handles all charging, maintenance, and fleet management – riders simply get in and enjoy the ride [zoox.com](https://zoox.com).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed (Zoox is a private subsidiary of Amazon)
- **Key Metric**: Not publicly available (revenue and funding details are not reported as a stand‑alone entity)
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Amazon (parent company)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Received authorization from the Nevada DMV to operate robotaxis on public roads [zoox.com/about](https://zoox.com/about)
  - Expanded testing and operations to Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, and other cities
  - Continues to scale its engineering and operations teams (multiple open roles on the careers page as of 2026)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Purpose‑built design**: Unlike retrofitted vehicles, Zoox’s robotaxi is designed from scratch for autonomous ride‑hailing (symmetrical, bidirectional, four‑wheel steering, no driver controls)
- **Amazon backing**: Deep financial resources, supply chain expertise, and cloud infrastructure (AWS) support rapid development and scaling
- **Full‑stack autonomy**: In‑house AI, computer vision, and sensing stack integrated directly into the vehicle design
- **Safety‑first approach**: Comprehensive testing, safety‑critical system design, and focus on public road validation

## Strategic Focus
- Achieving commercial launch of the Zoox ride‑hailing service in select U.S. cities
- Continuing to mature the autonomous driving system through real‑world testing and simulation
- Expanding the “Go‑to‑Market” strategy and building out operations teams (see CRM Lead, Go‑to‑Market Manager roles) [jobs.lever.co/zoox](https://jobs.lever.co/zoox)
- Scaling manufacturing and prototyping to prepare for fleet deployment

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Diverse, supportive community with inclusion‑focused strategy. Crew‑led groups for personal and professional development. Emphasis on trust, humility, and openness [zoox.com/careers](https://zoox.com/careers)
- **Work environment**: Hybrid? The careers page lists many roles as “On‑site” in Foster City, CA, with other office locations available. In‑office perks include a famous food program with daily changing local and sustainable dishes, plus a busy calendar of events and sports teams.
- **Benefits**: Comprehensive health plans (Cigna), mental health support, wellbeing program, flexible time off, generous family planning and caregiver support, and a commitment to work‑life balance.
- **Growth opportunities**: Work on cutting‑edge autonomous vehicle technology alongside some of the brightest minds in AI, engineering, computer vision, and more. Offers internships and re‑entry programs (via Path Forward) for career returners.
- **Recruitment process**: Uses AI tools to assist in reviewing applications but final decisions are human. No fees are charged at any stage – watch for recruitment scams [zoox.com/journal/landing-a-job-zoox](https://zoox.com/journal/landing-a-job-zoox)

## Sources
1. [Zoox official website](https://zoox.com)
2. [Zoox About page](https://zoox.com/about)
3. [Zoox Careers page](https://zoox.com/careers)
4. [Zoox job openings on Lever](https://jobs.lever.co/zoox)
5. [Zoox hiring and interview process](https://zoox.com/journal/landing-a-job-zoox)

## Other roles at Zoox

- [Technical Program Manager - Body & Closures](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-body-closures-zoox-foster-city-v8rsmhv138jv) — Foster City, CA
- [Manager - Model Evaluation](https://feeny.ai/job/manager-model-evaluation-zoox-foster-city-4s81ffwp6wwx) — Foster City, CA
- [Body Structures Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/body-structures-engineer-zoox-foster-city-b19kkq4dz6yz) — Foster City, CA
- [Senior / Staff CAD BOM Quality Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-cad-bom-quality-engineer-zoox-foster-city-q72ydhfk24z6) — Foster City, CA
- [Contract Student Worker - Digital Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/contract-student-worker-digital-engineer-zoox-foster-city-hcrj6xgjqfrh) — Foster City, CA
- [Team Lead, Readiness & Response](https://feeny.ai/job/team-lead-readiness-response-zoox-phoenix-qwr0hz12re8w) — Phoenix, AZ
- [Team Lead, Readiness & Response](https://feeny.ai/job/team-lead-readiness-response-zoox-dallas-6h1d6cjyjq4y) — Dallas, TX
- [Contract Student Worker - Data Analyst (20 hrs/wk)](https://feeny.ai/job/contract-student-worker-data-analyst-20-hrs-wk-zoox-seattle-mpnqpjzv5jd8) — Seattle, WA
- [Contract Student Worker - Forward Deployed Automation Engineer (40 hrs/wk)](https://feeny.ai/job/contract-student-worker-forward-deployed-automation-engineer-40-hrs-wk-zoox-hk3cwnd1kt70) — Seattle, WA
- [Data Scientist - Perception Verification and Validation](https://feeny.ai/job/data-scientist-perception-verification-and-validation-zoox-boston-8ye0nmh58jjt) — Boston, MA