Lead Perception Engineer / Los Angeles, CA
Peter W. Njenga
Lead Perception Engineer building autonomy, ML infrastructure, and production AI systems.
PhD dropout with nearly a decade of experience building perception and autonomy systems from the ground up. Based in Los Angeles, Peter works across aerospace missions, real-time ML infrastructure, and production AI for hospitals and defense agencies.
- Berkeley EECS 2013/
- Columbia CE 2015/
- 2x founder/
- Startup exit/
- Ex-Meta/
- Ex-Intel
Focus
Perception
Object detection, 3D pose estimation, visual-inertial odometry, sensor fusion, and real-time state estimation.
AI platforms
Production ML pipelines, GPU inference, retrieval systems, vector databases, and model deployment infrastructure.
Founder execution
Zero-to-one product development, customer discovery, technical writing, enterprise pilots, and team leadership.
Selected work
March 2024 - Present
Lead Perception Engineer
AstroForge / Seal Beach, CA
Developed computer vision-based perception pipelines for autonomous asteroid approach and characterization using PyTorch object detection and 3D pose estimation.
March 2023 - March 2024
Founder & CEO
Reframe AI / Los Angeles, CA
Led customer discovery and product development, translating GTM team workflows into AI agents that reduced manual research.
March 2020 - March 2023
Lead AI Platform Engineer
Vidrovr / New York, NY
Led development and deployment of a video search and disinformation monitoring system used by major media companies and U.S. federal agencies.
January 2016 - September 2019
Founder & CTO | Acquired
Behold AI / London, England
Architected and led development of a deep learning-powered medical diagnostics platform for real-time radiology triage across NHS trusts and U.S. hospital systems.
Skills
Programming Languages
Python, C/C++, Rust, CUDA, Verilog, shell scripting, system automation, ML pipelines, real-time systems, firmware, high-performance services.
ML / Systems
PyTorch, TensorFlow, object tracking, pose estimation, medical imaging, vector databases, Kubeflow, Airflow, RAG pipelines.
Cloud / Infra
Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, AWS, GCP, Azure, Supabase, CI/CD, Linux/UNIX, GPU scheduling, distributed caching.
Datastores / Observability
PostgreSQL, Cassandra, Redis, Elasticsearch, Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Sentry.
Frameworks / Tools
FastAPI, Flask, Django, React, Git, REST APIs, gRPC APIs, technical writing, cross-functional leadership.
Education
August 2013 - May 2015
MS, Computer Engineering
Columbia University, New York, NY
Focus in computer vision and machine learning.
August 2010 - May 2013
BS, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
GPA: 3.9/4.0. Focus on high-performance computing systems.