ABOUT THE PROGRAM

EmberWorks Sensing (part of the new R&D division within Coulson Aviation) is building a sensor network to deploy across a fleet of operational fire-fighting aircraft. The goal is to deliver real-time fire data and ongoing analytics to host agencies without changes to the existing missions. This is an early-stage product team working on impactful new technology for wildfire suppression efforts.

THE ROLE

This is a remote position with occasional travel. You will own all machine learning and computer vision work on the team. Your primary focus will be applying CV and ML to sensor data from operational wildfire aircraft to turn raw imagery into accurate, actionable outputs for the agencies on the ground. The work will grow in scope as the program matures and the data starts flowing.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

• Design and train CV/ML models to extract meaningful fire intelligence from sensor data
• Establish model validation workflows using ground-truth perimeter data from host agencies
• Iterate on model accuracy by fire type, terrain, and atmospheric condition
• Shape the roadmap for how ML can extend beyond detection into predictive and operational analytics
• Work with internal Coulson IT on model deployment and inference infrastructure
• Contribute to the strategy for how real-time video processing can extend the system’s operational value

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 3+ years applied ML or CV engineering in a production environment
• Strong experience with image segmentation, object detection, or scene classification (PyTorch, TensorFlow, or equivalent)
• Comfortable taking a model from training through to deployed inference
• Experience working with noisy, real-world sensor data rather than clean benchmark datasets
• Ability to define and track model performance metrics independently

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience with thermal or infrared imagery — satellite, aerial, or ground-based
• Background in remote sensing, geospatial ML, or environmental monitoring
• Familiarity with real-time or near-real-time video inference pipelines
• Understanding of fire behavior, wildland fire operations, or related domains
• Experience with edge or embedded inference (onboard processing)
• Familiarity with photogrammetry or structure-from-motion pipelines
• Preference for west coast location. Extra points for PNW

A NOTE ON THE ROLE

This role is intentionally broad for a small team. You will be the only ML engineer for a significant period. The ideal candidate is someone who has built models for real-world problems and is energized by working close to the operational use case rather than at arm's length from it.