Head of Research & Development (AI / Computer Vision)
Location: United States Compensation: $300-400k/year salary + equity Commitment: Full-time
About Panoptyc
At Panoptyc, we're on a mission to revolutionize loss prevention. Using visual AI and manual reviewers, we help retailers detect theft in over 15,000 markets across the United States. From Fortune 500 giants to local businesses, our impact is far-reaching. As a fully remote, rapidly growing team, we're excited to invite top talent worldwide to join us in reshaping the future of retail security.
We're looking for a technical trailblazer—a hacker, builder, and visionary leader who can turn bold ideas into working systems. As our Head of R&D, you'll lead the charge on building next-gen AI and computer vision products from 0 to 1, managing a lean team of engineers while still getting your hands dirty on high-impact technical work.
You’ll prototype quickly, validate in the field, and guide the evolution of our most ambitious products—starting with theft detection in retail environments used by thousands of stores.
What You’ll Do
Lead and manage a small team of engineers to prototype and productize computer vision and AI systems
Personally build and own early-stage proofs-of-concept, rapidly iterating and validating in the real world
Define and prioritize the technical R&D roadmap in collaboration with product and business leads
Architect scalable systems that transition from lab to production (edge and/or cloud)
Vet new models, data architectures, and hardware deployments
Be a key thought partner in setting technical direction for entirely new product lines
What We’re Looking For
8+ years in engineering roles with deep experience in AI, ML, and computer vision
Proven track record of building 0 → 1 products or technical breakthroughs that went to market
Strong hands-on skills with ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow), video analytics (e.g., OpenCV), and deployment tooling (e.g., ONNX, Triton, containers)
Comfortable leading and scaling small engineering teams
Hacker energy: fast, creative, scrappy, and resourceful
Experience creating data pipelines for and categorizing vast sets of video training data.
Bonus: Experience with edge computing, streaming pipelines, or hardware deployment in retail, robotics, or surveillance settings
Why This Role?
Lead and shape R&D at a company already deployed in 20,000+ stores and catching hundreds of thousands of thefts a year
Work with Fortune 500 retailers solving real-world loss prevention with cutting-edge AI
Huge ownership: lead products with the potential to become $500M+ businesses
Fast-moving, well-resourced team with real traction