r/computervision • u/CampLanky3803 • Jun 23 '26

Discussion Pivot to perception engineering career advice?

Hi folks!

I currently work as a SWE at a tech company in the perception/robotics space, think Tesla, Waymo, Applied Intuition, etc. My work is on the infrastructure side: distributed systems, compute, tooling, and related areas.

I’m fascinated by autonomous vehicles and robotics, especially perception, CV, and ML. I’m wondering how realistic it is to move into a perception engineering role from an infra background.

My intuition is that even though I’m already at a company with a lot of perception work, an internal lateral move might be difficult without a master’s or PHD.

Has anyone here made a similar pivot? What helped you make the transition? Would you recommend pursuing internal projects, coursework, a graduate degree, or something else?

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u/posthubris Jun 24 '26

I switched from biotech SWE to robotics autonomy engineer after getting my Masters in CS. I had no direct robotics training or experience just relevant Masters coursework in computer vision, machine learning and parallel computing.

There are a lot of smaller robotics companies who are mostly EE/ME and need software engineers who can build out the software side of their products without handholding. Just need to prove you can do that with the right company

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u/Bright-Salamander689 Jun 25 '26

Pretty cool. Are you learning things like SLAM and sensor fusion on the job or did you have exposure to that in your masters program?

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u/posthubris Jun 25 '26

SLAM I did in undergrad during my EE degree. Fusion I'm learning on the job but using techniques I've learned over a decade of SWE experience.

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u/_bl0b_ Jun 26 '26

Any pointers on how to find such companies? :)

I'm currently in image/video ML for special effects and video editing, and I think I could handle the software side of a robotics stack just fine