Expert Engineer, Machine Learning and Robotics Platforms

Astroscale is seeking a motivated individual to serve as an Expert Engineer to advance machine learning and robotics technologies throughout our global organization.  

In this position, you will collaborate closely with the Director of Machine Learning and Robotics to realize our mission of a circular space economy, playing a critical role in analyzing the technical details of future solutions based on machine learning and robotics technologies. Focusing mainly on the platforms necessary to design, develop, integrate, test, and validate them. To achieve this, you will use your expertise in open-source software, development standards, industry best practices, and ML and robotics frameworks to build and support solutions that accelerate and harmonize technology development across Astroscale's global entities. 

Your position will require you to collaborate closely with engineers to capture their unique mission requirements and devise comprehensive and appealing solutions that can be more easily adopted. In this scenario, your analytical and creative skills will be key to refining key information and striking a good compromise among various missions with different objectives and development approaches. 

An additional part of your role will be supporting the technical analysis and evaluation of current and future technology solutions from industry and academia. 

This is a unique opportunity to join a dynamic and rapidly growing global company that is developing in-orbit services technologies to address the safe and sustainable development of space.  

This position is hybrid, and some international travel may be required. 

Responsibilities 

• Collect and analyze requirements from engineers working in ML & robotic systems. 
• Create POCs for solutions and development platforms that can potentially aid their workflows. 
• Analyse tentative technology solutions and create technical reports to assess risks and potential. 
• Create, test, and ship software to help reduce the time to market of novel ML and robotic solutions.  
• Build and maintain data generation and management tools to support the future development of ML algorithms.  
• Define and document best practices for deploying safe, reliable, and robust ML & robotics systems. 
• Take part in implementing your chosen solutions with responsible engineers in our global offices. 
• Use your expertise, tact, objectivity, and strong communication skills to drive consensus among engineers toward agreed-upon solutions. 
• Support planning and coordinating R&D projects for robotics and machine learning to streamline the effective deployment of key technologies enabling future markets and capabilities. 
• Act as the deputy liaison for the CV-R team in the Japanese subsidiary, ensuring clear and consistent communication of project goals, progress, and challenges. 
• Report to the Director of Machine Learning and Robotics and support additional tasks and efforts of the Office of the CTO. 

Essential Skills And Experience 

• Advanced degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field. 
• 5+ years implementing and deploying machine learning or robotic solutions to industry or consumers. 
• Extensive experience in coordinating or deploying solutions using modern development tools and practices, such as DevOps (e.g. GitLab, CI/CD, Ansible, Jira), MLOps (e.g. MLFlow, SageMaker, DVC, Neptune), ROS, Docker, robotic simulators (e.g. Gazebo, CoppeliaSim), synthetic data generators (e.g. Unity, Issac Sim, Blender), automated testing (PyTest, Bazel), and programming languages and libraries such as Python, C++, TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, Optuna, and OpenCV. 
• Excellent knowledge of modern software development practices, data architectures, software quality practices, testing, and deploying applications, including familiarity with open-source software and agile development. 
• Highly motivated and adaptable with a strong ability to work independently, manage multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment, and effectively collaborate across teams with minimal direction. 
• Good verbal and written communication skills, with proficiency in English and Japanese (or at least a willingness to learn Japanese, coupled with an understanding of working with translators). 

 

Desirable Skills

• Experience in sensor simulation (e.g. RGB, Monochrome, & IR cameras, LIDAR, RADAR). 
• Experience in optimizing deep-learning models towards specific hardware targets. 
• Project management experience in planning and managing R&D projects within a global context. 
• Significant contributions to open-source projects, including leadership of projects. 
• Knowledge of spacecraft subsystems & various satellite engineering disciplines. 
• Leadership experience in a senior role, able to guide and inspire teams across multiple locations. 
• Experience with cloud services (e.g. AWS, Azure). 

 

Location 

Tokyo, Japan 

 

Entity 

Astroscale Holdings, Inc. 

 

Astroscale is the first private company with a vision to secure the safe and sustainable development of space for the benefit of future generations, and the only company solely dedicated to on-orbit servicing across all orbits. 

Founded in 2013, Astroscale is developing innovative and scalable solutions across the spectrum of on-orbit servicing missions, including life extension, in-situ space situational awareness, end-of-life services, and active debris removal, to create sustainable space systems and mitigate the growing and hazardous buildup of debris in space. Astroscale is also defining business cases and working with government and commercial stakeholders to develop norms, regulations, and incentives for the responsible use of space. 

Headquartered in Japan, Astroscale has an international presence with subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Israel, and Singapore. Astroscale is a rapidly expanding venture company, working to advance safe and sustainable growth in space and solve a growing environmental concern. Find out more about Astroscale at www.astroscale.com.