Your Impact
You will report directly to Axon's SVP of AI and be a critical member of the AI Leadership team. You will be technically responsible for a range of applied science initiatives across Computer Vision (CV), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), and other domains to harness Axon's vast and growing network of sensors, signals, and data to provide measurably differentiated outcomes for our public safety customers and the communities they serve.
As a Sr. Principal Scientist, you will collaborate with product management and engineering stakeholders to identify key strategic opportunities for Axon AI to invest in. You will identify the research approach, assess the implementation risk and define the success metrics for multiple projects while actively providing guidance to other research scientists and machine learning engineers within the team. You will be responsible for the entire AI innovation life cycle from model prototyping to deployment and continuous learning.
The ideal candidate will have a proven scientific background and a consistent track record of successfully researching and delivering scalable AI-based products with hands-on execution as well as by mentoring other scientists. We need someone willing to be fearless and more than willing to take on bold challenges. By accelerating adoption of our technologies, you'll help protect life in public safety for both officers and the communities they serve around the world.
Your Day-to-Day

• Operate as a thought leader and visionary, with the ability to guide, influence and inspire peak performance, innovation and adoption of AI-enabled technologies across the Axon value chain.
• Mentor and provide guidance to a world-class team of research scientists that deliver novel, strategic AI solutions with diverse, industry-leading skills in deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing and more
• Collaborate with tech and product teams on sourcing data and defining model building workflows from experimentation and implementation to deployment and continuous improvement
• Bring your industry, research expertise and deep knowledge of the state-of-the-art in your field to challenge existing assumptions and introduce new machine learning algorithms, statistical approaches and training workflows
• Lead by example by emphasizing collaborative and inclusive teamwork fostering a culture of ownership, experimentation, and innovation
• Contribute back to the research community via academic publications, tech blogs, open-source code as well as creating internal/external AI challenge
• Represent Axon at tech talk events and scientific conferences

Basic Qualifications

• A Ph.D. Degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Applied Mathematics or an equivalent highly technical field
• 7+ years of modeling experience in one or more the following areas: Natural Language Processing/Understanding (NLP/NLU), Computer Vision (CV) and Acoustic Event Detection
• Hands on experience developing, scaling and implementing machine learning using relevant programming languages (such as Python), state of the art deep learning frameworks and big data tools
• Working knowledge of advanced ML techniques: Multi-task Learning, Transfer Learning, Reinforcement Learning as well as Unsupervised and Semi-supervised Learning
• Track record of publications and contributions to the machine learning community at large
• Experience with designing and shipping software products that leverage machine learning at scale
• Excellent problem solving skills and ability to dive into learning algorithms, model architecture, evaluation metrics, and field testing scenarios
• Comfort communicating and interacting with scientists, engineers and product managers as well as understanding and translating the science of AI and Machine Learning to a more general audience

Preferred Qualifications

• 9+ years of modeling experience in the areas of NLP, CV, Sensor Fusion and Acoustic Event Detection
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience with distributed machine learning and deploying models at scale in cloud environments (such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud)
• Familiarity with IoT/Edge AI and optimizing ML models to run on-device with constrained compute, power and latency budgets

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive salary and 401k with employer match
• Discretionary paid time off
• Robust parental leave policy
• An award-winning office/working environment
• Ride along with police officers to see them use our technology and get inspired
• And more...