Machine Vision Applications Engineer, San Francisco

Join a world-class team of engineers, scientists, and builders shipping AI vision systems that catch defects humans can't, deployed in factories across 5 continents.

We're not just another AI startup. We ship real hardware + software that runs 24/7 in demanding factory environments.

Solve Hard Problems

Work on real-time AI inference, edge computing, and multi-camera systems that inspect thousands of parts per minute in noisy, vibrating factory environments.

Global & Remote-Friendly

Our team spans San Francisco, Austin, Mexico City, São Paulo, Zurich, Taipei, Shanghai and more. Work from where you do your best work.

Ship Fast, Ship Often

We move at startup speed with manufacturing rigor. Small teams, big ownership, direct customer impact. You'll see your work in production, not PowerPoints.

Competitive Compensation

Competitive salary, equity, comprehensive health insurance, 401(k), and generous PTO. We invest in our people as much as our technology.

Learning & Growth

Work alongside former Tesla, Apple, and top-tier manufacturing engineers. We sponsor conferences, courses, and certifications.

Real-World Impact

Your code runs on real production lines catching real defects. Reducing waste, improving safety, and helping manufacturers compete globally.

Open Positions

Find your next role. We're looking for talented people who thrive on hard problems and want their work to matter.

Machine Vision Applications Engineer, San Francisco

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

Hybrid

Overview US

Machine Vision Applications Engineer
San Francisco, CA · Applications · Full-time, in office

Overview.ai is bringing the cutting edge of AI computer vision to manufacturing, solving inspection problems that were previously not solvable with traditional machine vision. We’re a full-stack company: we deploy GPU-powered cameras on production lines, run inference on the edge, and operate a platform that supports large fleets of devices deployed across the world.

We’re growing extremely fast. Our customers love the product because it works: high accuracy, fast deployment, and an operator-friendly experience that makes real factory rollouts possible, not just pilots.

THE OPPORTUNITY

We’re looking for a Machine Vision Applications Engineer to own imaging feasibility in our San Francisco lab.

Customer samples arrive here before anything gets deployed. Your job is to make the defect visible: work out the lighting, the lens, the camera, the geometry, and prove the imaging holds up repeatably. That work is what every successful deployment is built on, and right now it is the bottleneck between a customer’s hardest inspection problem and a system that solves it.

This is a hands-on role. You will spend your days with real parts, real optics, and real lighting, running trials and documenting what works and why. If you have been doing this inside a vision vendor, a distributor, or an integrator and want the same work with more ownership and a harder class of problem, this is that job.

WHY THIS ROLE IS EXCITING

You own the lab: The SF lab is yours to run, from testing standards to hardware evaluation to how we decide an application is feasible.

Hard problems, by design: Customers come to us with inspections that defeated traditional machine vision for years. The easy imaging problems never reach your bench.

Volume and variety: A growing stream of customer samples across automotive, aerospace, and consumer manufacturing means you see more imaging problems in a year here than most engineers see in five.

Your findings travel: What you learn in the lab shapes hardware decisions, deployment approaches, and what we tell customers is possible.

Room to grow into it: This is a mid-level role with a clear path to becoming the technical voice on imaging as the lab and the team scale.

WHAT YOU’LL OWN

Imaging feasibility: Run trials on incoming customer samples to determine whether and how an inspection can be imaged reliably.

Lighting and optics selection: Choose and configure lighting, lenses, cameras, filters, and geometry for each application, including the parts that fight back.

Lab ownership: Set up and run the SF lab: test standards, hardware inventory, sample handling, and how results get recorded.

Proof-of-concept testing: Build and document POCs that give Sales and Applications a defensible answer on what the system can and cannot do.

Image quality troubleshooting: Diagnose and resolve image quality problems that drive false rejects, missed defects, and inconsistent results.

Hardware evaluation: Test new cameras, lenses, and lighting and recommend what belongs in our stack.

Findings and documentation: Write up what worked, what did not, and why, so the next engineer facing the same part does not start over.

WHO YOU ARE

Required

Hands-on experience selecting and configuring lighting, lenses, and cameras to image parts for inspection or measurement.

Experience running imaging trials, feasibility studies, or proof-of-concept testing on customer or production samples in a lab or demo environment.

Working knowledge of optical trade-offs: lens selection, field of view, working distance, depth of field, and resolution.

Comfortable working directly with hardware, running your own experiments, and solving problems independently.

Able to document findings clearly and explain technical trade-offs to customers and internal teams.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area or willing to relocate, and able to work primarily from our SF office.

Strong Preferences

Experience with advanced lighting techniques: dome, dark field, backlight, coaxial, polarized, or structured lighting.

Experience with telecentric optics and precision measurement.

Customer-facing technical work: demos, application support, or on-site troubleshooting.

Experience troubleshooting inspection performance in production: false rejects, missed defects, image quality variation.

Familiarity with traditional machine vision software tools (Cognex, Keyence, Matrox, Halcon, Dalsa).

Extreme growth and real-world impact: We’re not building demos. We’re deploying AI systems on real production lines, at scale.

Talent density: You’ll work with world-class engineers and operators across AI, embedded systems, and enterprise deployment.

Front-row seat to the AI manufacturing wave: One of the biggest transformations happening in industry right now.

Ownership: Your work directly changes the trajectory of the company.

Global exposure: You’ll work with the most advanced customers and factories in the world.