Director, Perception

Zoox is hiring a Director, Perception in Foster City, United States. It pays $410k-$492k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Zoox.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
The posting mentions computer vision among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as an executive role.
Zoox has 226 other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

computer-vision

We’re reinventing personal transportation—making the future safer, cleaner, and more enjoyable. We’ve created our vehicle specifically for dense, complicated urban environments. Zoox is the only driving vehicle on the market with bidirectional driving capabilities and four-wheel steering, allowing us to maneuver through compact spaces and change directions without the need to reverse. The future is for riders! Our growing software engineering leadership team is searching for a Director of Perception. Our perception stack is responsible for building Zoox’s world-class 3D environment model from multi-modal sensor data. We create novel AI architectures that combine the latest academic results with many in-house innovations in creative ways. Our algorithms are relentlessly optimized and tuned to run efficiently and effectively on a wide variety of real-life data as well as in simulation. You will be responsible for leading high-impact Perception teams with their technical roadmap and milestone goals. You will be closely collaborating with other AI and SW leaders, simulation, and our systems design and mission assurance teams to deliver an exceptional dynamic objects perception system encompassing modalities such as vision, lidar, radar and long-wave IR across pipelines such as segmentation, detection, classification, fusion and tracking. You will lead a diverse, experienced team with a rapidly growing scope and responsibility while also working on some of the most complex problems in artificial intelligence, perception, and sensor fusion.

In this role, you will:

Build and lead a group of managers and engineers, and be responsible for the team’s roadmap, productivity, execution and impact within the company.
Set the vision for, grow, and lead a team of talented software engineers in the overall planning, execution, and success of complex technical projects, while providing the team with technical leadership.
Collaborate with engineers and leaders across a variety of teams to brainstorm and accelerate the development of perception capabilities.
Provide clear summaries, progress, and recommendations to our executive leadership team.
Establishing best practices and statistical rigor around data-driven decision-making.
Stay on top of industry and academic trends in AI and perception, making sure Zoox remains at the cutting edge of both algorithms and their implementation at scale.

Qualifications

Strong understanding of computer vision systems and AI software stacks.
8+ years of extensive leadership experience, leading teams of 40+
10+ years of experience in computer vision, machine learning and related technologies.
Strong leadership skills suitable for recruiting, leading, growing, and managing technical team members in solving a challenging problem, and building a critical component of a real-time system.
Recent experience in implementing vision & perception algorithms.
Expertise in implementing autonomy solutions and deploying real-world systems.
Experience with recent AI approaches including E2E models for perception, transformers and sparse networks.
Experience with sensor fusion and uncertainty modeling across multiple modalities.
Strong presentation and communication skills.
MSc or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science or related fields.

Bonus Qualifications

Familiarity with perception of autonomous vehicles or similar robots
Hands-on experience having deployed real products or platforms into the real world, and intimately understanding the challenges of working with complex systems
Involvement in validation or evaluation of risk and/or safety-critical systems
Knowledge of GPU and/or TPU programming (CUDA, TensorRT, etc.)

About ZooxZoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.
Follow us on LinkedIn
AccommodationsIf you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.
A Final Note:You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

How we rate this

Director, Perception at Zoox rates 86 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Director, Perception is an open job at Zoox.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $410k-$492k a year.
The role is based in Foster City, CA.
The job was posted on October 27, 2025.
Seniority: executive.
Applications are handled by Zoox. Apply on Zoox

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Computer vision

Questions you could be asked

Walk me through a computer vision problem you solved, from raw data to a deployed model.
How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Computer vision. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

Want an expert to read your CV for this job?

Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. You get your review by email within 24 hours.

Get a free CV review Get your CV rewritten Check your resume with the ATS resume checker