PerceptionEngineer

At TerraFirma, we’re redefining how the world moves earth for construction. Founded by former SpaceX engineers and backed by Bain Capital Ventures, TerraFirma is automating construction to make it faster, cheaper, and safer. Our Story & Mission At SpaceX, we were part of the teams that built the largest rocket in human history, launched the largest constellation of satellites ever made, and delivered connectivity to millions of people worldwide. What we learned was simple: infrastructure is everything. At Starbase, the biggest barrier to launching missions to Mars was not building the rocket. It was how slow, expensive, and complex it was to build the infrastructure around it. We lacked buildings, roads, water, power, communications, and waste management, and constructing them took far more time and resources than it should have. From a first-principles perspective, that doesn't make sense. It shouldn't be this hard or costly to create the foundations for progress. That’s when we realized something important: the same engineering mindset that enabled us to tackle space exploration and mass manufacturing could be applied to infrastructure. By bringing the principles of simplification, iteration, acceleration, and automation to construction, we can unlock a new era in how the world builds. Accelerating infrastructure unlocks progress across every domain, creating a self-sustaining engine for tackling humanity’s toughest challenges. The innovations we develop on Earth will lay the groundwork for the technologies that one day make settlement on Mars possible. Job Overview You will design and implement the perception systems that give our automated heavy machinery the awareness needed to operate effectively in complex, unstructured environments. This role combines high-level architecture decisions with hands-on algorithm development, hardware integration, and field testing. You will work across the perception stack, from integrating and calibrating advanced sensors to bu