Digital Signal Processing Engineer; Acoustic

Location

Onsite — Austin, TX

Full‑Time

Senior Acoustic DSP & Real‑Time Beamforming Engineer

We are a funded startup building autonomous machines for defense markets. Our first product is designed to counter small, fast FPV suicide drones. Our robots require world‑class perception and decision‑making. If you love turning cutting‑edge algorithms into field‑ready capability, this is your playground.

We are seeking a Senior Acoustic DSP & Real‑Time Beamforming Engineer to own the stack that turns raw multichannel audio into reliable bearings and alerts. You will design algorithms to function in messy outdoor conditions, optimized for low‑latency execution on edge hardware to ensure our systems react faster than the threat.

• Build the DSP Pipeline:
  Design and implement the full pipeline, including framing/STFT, filtering, coherence features, and noise/wind handling.
• Implement Beamforming & DoA:
  Compare and deploy approaches like MUSIC, ESPRIT, and MVDR, selecting the best strategy based on real‑world field metrics.
• Hardware Partnership:
  Translate physical constraints (mic spacing, SNR limits) into algorithm decisions to ensure hardware and software are perfectly synced.
• Create Evaluation Infrastructure:
  Curate datasets and build replay harnesses and error taxonomies to answer "why did it fail" with data‑driven certainty.
• Edge Optimization:
  Optimize for compute limits on CPU/GPU with deterministic behavior and robust fallbacks for high‑stakes environments.

• Experience:
  
  Demonstrated success delivering real‑world multichannel audio, radar, or sonar systems validated on messy, imperfect data.
• Technical Depth:
  Strong beamforming/DoA fundamentals and sensitivity to calibration errors (phase errors, channel mismatch).
• Coding:
  Proficiency in Python and C++/Rust with the ability to productize, profile, and optimize code.
• Iteration: A mindset that iterates from measurements: logging → hypothesis → change → field verification.
• Compliance:
  This position requires access to export‑controlled information under ITAR. Only U.S. persons are permitted to access such information.
• Background:
  Must be willing to submit to a background check.

• Embedded deployment experience (NVIDIA Jetson)
• Acoustic tracking, temporal smoothing, or multi‑source handling
• Prior defense startup experience

• Application screen phone call (30 min)
• Virtual interview with co‑founder #1 (30 min via MS Teams)
• Paid take‑home ($500, ~4‑8 hours)
• Review work
• Virtual interview with co‑founder #2 (45 min via MS Teams)
• In‑person visit to Austin/Offer

Compensation Range: $150K - $250K