Full-Time

Applied AI Engineer

Percepta

Percepta

1-10 employees

Cloud-based video analytics for shoplifting detection

Compensation Overview

$150k - $300k/yr

New York, NY, USA

In Person

Category
Software Engineering (1)
Required Skills
Kubernetes
MLOps
Python
Tensorflow
Git
Pytorch
Docker
AWS
REST APIs
Data Analysis
Google Cloud Platform
Requirements
  • AI-nativeness: You are excited about the potential for artificial intelligence to transform businesses and want to play a hands-on role in bringing frontier technology into critical institutions.
  • Being generative and collaborative: You love constantly jamming on new “what if” ideas with teammates and partners.
  • Extreme ownership: You’re willing to jump in and love being the one on the hook. You aren’t going to wait to be pointed at a task—you’re going to identify what you think we should do next, and then do it.
  • Execution excellence and speed: You can build stuff in messy environments and know how to get code written and shipped quickly. You can hold the balance of speed and quality and know when to push the pace vs. when to slow down.
  • Customer-obsession and respect: You’re motivated by understanding customer pain points and iterating directly with end users to deliver wins quickly.
Responsibilities
  • Shape the AI vision: Collaborate with customer stakeholders to define their long-term AI strategy and transformation roadmap.
  • Identify high-leverage use cases: Work backwards from the long-term vision to surface and prioritize specific AI applications that connect our ambition to measurable business value.
  • Ship real products: Rapidly build and deploy AI solutions that work in the wild, with real users and real data.
  • Advance our core product: Encode the lessons from our customer engagements in our Mosaic product, consistently contributing new features, patterns, and abstractions.
Desired Qualifications
  • Hands-on experience with LLM tooling (LangGraph, Mastra, Agents SDK, etc).
  • Built and deployed production LLM-powered systems (tool use, RAG pipelines, multi-step agents, human-in-the-loop, etc).
  • Strong technical foundations in Python/TypeScript, cloud deployment (AWS/GCP/Azure) and DevOps tooling.
  • Prior startup or founding engineer experience, balancing craft, ownership, and speed.

Percepta Labs builds cloud-based video analytics for retail loss prevention. It ingests retailers’ existing security camera feeds and uses action recognition and pose estimation to identify behaviors that could indicate shoplifting in real time, then assigns a probability that a theft is happening. The system emphasizes ethical AI by anonymizing demographic features (race, gender, age) to avoid bias and protect privacy. The product is sold to retailers to help reduce shrinkage and improve margins, with early testing claiming higher accuracy than human loss-prevention staff. Percepta’s growth has been supported by a major investment from ADT Commercial, which acquired the company and appointed its co-founder as ADT’s first Director of Artificial Intelligence. The company’s goal is to provide scalable, privacy-conscious video analytics that help retailers prevent theft more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Company Size

1-10

Company Stage

Seed

Total Funding

$1M

Headquarters

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Founded

2019

Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • ADT Commercial's $1M investment and network accelerates retail market penetration significantly.
  • Expansion to Fortune 500 and government agencies broadens addressable market beyond retail.
  • 24/7 automated monitoring reduces shrinkage and improves profit margins for retailers.

What critics are saying

  • Percepta transitioned to General Catalyst transformation company, abandoning retail shoplifting focus.
  • Brand confusion with Percepta.com automotive services undermines retailer trust and sales.
  • Verkada's integrated hardware-software bundles outcompete Percepta's cloud-only CCTV analysis approach.

What makes Percepta unique

  • Ethical AI anonymizes demographic features to eliminate racial and gender bias in detection.
  • Action recognition technology achieves 2x accuracy versus human loss prevention personnel.
  • Integrates into existing CCTV systems within minutes without hardware replacement.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

Health Savings Account/Flexible Spending Account

Unlimited Paid Time Off

Flexible Work Hours

Remote Work Options

Paid Vacation

Paid Sick Leave

Paid Holidays

Sabbatical Leave

Hybrid Work Options

Stock Options

Company Equity

401(k) Retirement Plan

401(k) Company Match

Performance Bonus

Profit Sharing

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Relocation Assistance

Employee Referral Bonus

Student Loan Assistance

Parental Leave

Family Planning Benefits

Fertility Treatment Support

Adoption Assistance

Childcare Support

Elder Care Support

Pet Insurance

Bereavement Leave

Professional Development Budget

Conference Attendance Budget

Training Programs

Tuition Reimbursement

Professional Certification Support

Mentorship Program

Wellness Program

Mental Health Support

Gym Membership

Commuter Benefits

Meal Benefits

Phone/Internet Stipend

Home Office Stipend

Legal Services

Employee Discounts

Company Social Events