Senior Staff Engineer

Job Description

100% onsite - Columbia, MD

We are seeking a highly skilled and hands-on Senior Staff Engineer to lead development efforts in AI, MLOps, and signal processing, with a strong emphasis on deploying intelligent systems on microcontrollers and working directly with customer data.  This role demands not only proficiency in machine learning frameworks but also a deep understanding of the underlying algorithms and their practical application to real-world sensor data.  The ideal candidate will also bring extensive experience in software production development, including CI/CD pipelines, GitHub workflows, and rigorous testing practices.

Key Responsibilities:

• Architect, develop, and maintain scalable ML product codebases with production-grade quality.
• Lead MLOps strategy including model deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Apply advanced signal processing techniques to one-dimensional sensor data (e.g., audio, motor control, accelerometers).
• Collaborate with customers to ingest, debug, and analyze their data for model development and validation.
• Design and implement machine learning models tailored to time-series and sensor data, with a strong grasp of algorithmic foundations (e.g., SVM, decision trees, neural networks, reinforcement learning).
• Optimize and deploy ML models on microcontrollers (MCUs) and embedded platofrms.
• Develop smaller, faster models suitable for edge deployment.
• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines, GitHub workflows, and automated testing frameworks.
• Write and maintain unit tests, integration tests, and documentation to ensure code quality and reliability.
• Assemble hardware setups (e.g., sensor arrays, embedded boards) and collect data from real-world environments to support model development and validation.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to technical leadership across teams.
• Stay current with emerging technologies in AI, embedded ML, and signal processing.

Qualifications

• Education: Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
• Experience: Minimum 5 years in software development with a focus on AI/ML and signal processing.
• Proficiency in Python, MATLAB, and at least one other language (e.g., C, C++)
• Deep understanding of ML algorithms, reinforcement learning and practical experience implementing them from scratch or customizing existing frameworks.
• Experience with ML frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, LIBSVM).
• Strong background in digital signal processing (DSP) for audio and time-series data.
• Hands-on experience with sensor data (e.g., accelerometers, motor control systems).
• Experience working with customer datasets, including debugging and preprocessing.
• Proven ability to optimize performance and size.
• Extensive experience with CI/CD pipelines, GitHub version control, and automated testing.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Strong understanding of software engineering best practices and agile development.
• Minimum professional experience: Updated to 6 years of hands-on experience in ML/AI development.
• Technical leadership requirement: Candidates should currently hold a Senior Staff Engineer role in ML/AI development or a Staff Engineer position with at least 1 year of experience in that role.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with edge computing or embedded systems.
• Knowledge of reall-time systems and latency optimization.
• Contributions to open-source projects or published research in AI/signal processing.

Additional Information

The expected annual pay range for this position is $134,500 - 185,000. This position is also eligible for   bonus opportunities and commission pay.  Please note that the final offer amount will be dependent on geographic location, applicable experience, and skillset of the candidate. 

Renesas offers a full range of elective benefits including medical, health savings account (with applicable medical plan), dental, vision, health and/or dependent care flexible spending accounts, pre-tax commuter benefits, life insurance, AD&D, and pet insurance. In addition to elective benefit options, benefited employees receive company-paid life insurance and AD&D, LTD, short term medical benefits as well as paid sick time, paid holidays, and accrued paid vacation. New employees will attend a detailed benefit orientation to learn more about our many benefits and resources 

Renesas is an embedded semiconductor solution provider driven by its Purpose ‘To Make Our Lives Easier.’ As the industry’s leading expert in embedded processin