Computer Vision Applied Scientist

Key Skills

Algorithms, AWS, Framework, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), JavaScript, NoSQL, Python Programming, SQL

Job Description

The problem: Every minute matters in fire response. As climate change amplifies the intensity of wildfires—with longer fire seasons, dryer fuels, and faster winds—new ignitions spread faster and put more communities at risk. Today, most wildfires are detected by bystanders and reported via 911, meaning it can take hours to detect a fire, verify its exact location and size, and dispatch first responders. Fire authorities need a faster way to detect, confirm, and pinpoint fires so that they can quickly respond—preventing small flare-ups from becoming devastating infernos.

About Pano: Pano is a venture-backed early-stage climate tech startup that is the leader in wildfire early detection, leveraging the latest advancements in IoT, AI, satellites, and SaaS software to deliver actionable intelligence to customers. Pano leverages mountaintop cameras and satellites to detect the first traces of smoke and put real-time fire images in the hands of asset owners and first responders to speed up containment. Pano is already partnering with major utilities, fire authorities, and government agencies in the USA and Australia. Recent media coverage includes being named one of the Top 10 most innovative companies in AI of 2023 by FastCompany and recipient of the Innovative Mobile Service and Application Award at Mobile World Congress through our partnership with T-Mobile.

Pano brings together a diverse team bridging frontline, wildland firefighting experience with best-in-class know-how in operations, logistics, artificial intelligence, and software. Our team is composed of experienced technology professionals from companies such as Apple, Cisco, Nest, DoorDash and Meta. Headquartered in San Francisco with an office and factory in the Mission District, our hybrid team works from locations around the world. Founded in mid-2020, we’ve raised over $40M from leading VC funds.

The Role

The Computer Vision Applied Scientist will develop algorithms to detect fires from image sequences, both at night and during the day. The faster and more accurately our algorithms detect fires, the quicker fire-fighters can respond and contain fires, and the lower the operational cost of false positives. You’ll work at the bleeding edge, developing fit-for-purpose algorithms leveraging both classical and deep-learned techniques that go beyond the best results for this application published in top research conferences. You will work in collaboration with platform engineering, product management, and operations to develop these methods as robust, reusable platform components that can be deployed on large-scale datasets and operate in near real-time.

What you’ll do

• Lead the development of state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms to detect fires both at night and during the day
• Drive improvements in core business metrics for fire detection, including time-to-detect, false positive rate, and cost
• Stay up-to-date with current research and evaluate promising developments for application to fire detection
• Produce clearly written descriptions of finished work and proposals for new projects
• Carefully evaluate the performance of proposed models, including the development and improvement of key datasets
• Work with product management, operations, and software development to create complete end-to-end solutions

What you’ll bring

• PhD. in computer vision or a Masters plus equivalent experience researching novel techniques
• 3+ years of industry experience developing and deploying computer vision algorithms for a specific application (e.g. medical imaging, autonomous driving perception, visual search, etc)
• Experience developing models for computer vision tasks using modern deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch)
• Strong programming skills in Python, including processing large-scale image datasets in a cloud computing environment (e.g. Google Cloud or AWS)
• Ability to communicate effectively and collaborate with people of diverse backgrounds and job functions
• Experience adapting deep neural network architectures to align best with specific applications
• Demonstrated ability to write software in a team
• Passion for climate change adaptation and/or firefighting

$185,000 - $221,000 a year

Final salary offered is based upon multiple factors, including individual job-related qualifications, education, experience, knowledge, skills and location. In addition to salary, this position is also eligible for stock options. We offer comprehensive health insurance, paid time off, and 401k.

Pano is an equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and supporting our team-members regardless of where they come from. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.