Principal Computer Vision Engineer

About this role

<h3><strong>PRINCIPAL COMPUTER VISION &amp; TRACKING ENGINEER</strong></h3> <p>Catapult is building the future of sports performance technology, with a mission to <strong>Unleash the Potential</strong> of every athlete and team on earth. We don't just work in the sporting industry; we are actively changing it.&nbsp; Since 2006, our solutions have been leading the way in sports performance software, science, and data, in a world where 1% can literally mean the difference between winning and losing.</p> <p>We work with over 5,000+ teams around the world, empowering coaches, managers and trainers in premier teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, EPL, AFL, NRL, NCAA and more. We provide the information they need to optimize athletes’ health, game-day readiness, and performance, as well as in-game tactics.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Catapult is a sports technology company that empowers professional teams to make data-driven decisions. We deliver health, performance, video, and AI insights from the locker room to competitive environments, ensuring every decision is an opportunity to gain an advantage, sharpen performance, and build lasting success.&nbsp;</p> <h3><strong>WE WANT PEOPLE WHO ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT SOLVING HARD PROBLEMS</strong></h3> <p>We are looking for a&nbsp;<strong>Principal Computer Vision &amp; Tracking Engineer</strong> to own and drive the computer vision and real-time tracking systems at the heart of our camera-based products.</p> <p>Based in London (hybrid), you will lead a small team building the perception stack that turns vision data into athlete performance insights&nbsp; – from neural network inference on edge AI accelerators, to 3D object tracking, to the data science that validates and extends what our system can measure. Today, that means tracking barbell-based weightlifting with sub-rep precision; tomorrow it means general human movement.</p> <p>This is a role for someone who thrives on breadth. In any given week, you might be optimizing a model for edge inference, designing a new movement analysis algorithm, or analyzing data to produce athlete profiles. You'll report to a Senior Director of Engineering and player-coach a small pod of engineers while collaborating closely with our embedded platform and applications teams.</p> <p>If you've built real-time perception systems that had to work reliably in the real world&nbsp; – on real hardware, with real constraints&nbsp; – this is your kind of problem.</p> <h3><strong>WHAT YOU’LL DO&nbsp;</strong></h3> <ul> <li><em>Own the technical direction of our computer vision and tracking domain: the full pipeline from sensor readings through computer vision, motion recognition, and metric calculation.</em></li> <li><em>Lead and mentor a small team (1–2 engineers), setting priorities, reviewing designs, and driving execution while remaining deeply hands-on.</em></li> <li><em>Train, optimize, and deploy neural networks for real-time segmentation and classification on embedded hardware, including model conversion and optimization for edge accelerators.</em></li> <li><em>Extend our tracking and motion recognition pipeline to support new movements and types of analysis.</em></li> <li><em>Own the reliability of the domain: analyze tracking accuracy, build quality metrics, and use data to drive improvements across the pipeline.</em></li> </ul> <h3><strong>WHAT YOU’LL NEED</strong></h3> <ul> <li><em>8+ years of software engineering experience, with significant depth in the engineering of complex systems</em></li> <li><em>Demonstrated experience shipping systems to production and end-to-end ownership of them</em></li> <li><em>Strong proficiency in Python and C/C++ –&nbsp; you're comfortable across the full stack from higher level applications to performance-critical native code.</em></li> <li><em>The ability to own ambiguous problems: scoping, prototyping, shipping, and measuring.</em></li> <li><em>Comfort with leadership: you've mentored engineers, led technical direction, or driven cross-team initiatives, even if your title didn't say "lead."</em></li> </ul> <p><em>Nice to have – and what would make you exceptional:</em></p> <ul> <li>Computer Vision and ML experience</li> <li>Deeper knowledge of the mathematics behind tracking systems: 3D geometry, state estimation, filtering, optimization.</li> <li>Experience with depth cameras (structured light, time-of-flight) and 3D perception.</li> <li>Familiarity with embedded Linux, Docker on ARM, and systems-level debugging.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>WHAT YOUR SUCCESS WILL LOOK LIKE</strong></h3> <ul> <li>In 6 months time… You have shipped at least one meaningful improvement to detection or tracking quality, and you have a deep understanding of the tracking system and how we might extend it.</li> <li>In 12 months time… You've driven the roadmap for expanding our vision system to new movement types. The team is running well, and you're the go-to person across the company for anything related to how our camera system sees and understands athletes.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>WHY CATAPULT?&nbsp;</strong></h3> <ul> <li>We have amazing people. We promise you’ll work with some of the most ambitious,&nbsp; intelligent people in an exciting industry, and do some of the best work of your life.</li> <li>We encourage our people to engage in constructive, open, and honest communication to make Catapult extraordinary.&nbsp;</li> <li>We work in a collaborative yet challenging environment to consistently improve our performance, which in turn impacts our customers' performance.</li> <li>Our workforce spans more than 20 countries. You'll have the opportunity to work with people from multiple nationalities and cultures, and to build your global awareness.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li> <li>We value improvement and development. We are challenging ourselves to continuously grow and become a high-performance company. That means we maintain a growth mindset in everything we do, and our people are always looking for ways to improve.&nbsp; There i