Principal AI Computer Vision Engineer

About the role

Medtronic is a global leader in healthcare technology with a Mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. Our 95,000 employees work across more than 150 countries to put patients first — developing innovative medical technologies that improve the lives of 72+ million patients each year. Your unique talents will help shape the future of healthcare while building a career grounded in purpose, growth, and impact.

Our award-winning Analytics for Manufacturing Imaging (AMI) team is pioneering the use of AI computer vision in manufacturing, developing scalable platform capabilities that enable every manufacturing engineer to unlock value from visual data. Building on this foundation, the Visual Process Monitoring (VPM) Deployment Acceleration Team is responsible for deploying AI-enabled process monitoring solutions across Medtronic's global manufacturing network.

As a Principal AI Computer Vision Engineer, you will serve as a technical enabler for VPM project delivery by accelerating computer vision model development, deployment, and adoption across manufacturing sites. This role combines hands-on computer vision with stakeholder enablement. You will work directly with manufacturing, automation, quality, and process engineering teams to transform image data into actionable process intelligence. You will help teams collect data, develop and train models, deploy solutions using the AMI platform, and build long-term site capability through coaching and technical mentorship. Unlike traditional computer vision research roles, this position is focused on scaling repeatable deployment patterns and enabling successful project execution across a growing portfolio of VPM initiatives.

Work location: Rice Creek, Minnesota (onsite 4 days per week). Travel: 25% travel required.

Responsibilities

• Develop, train, validate, and optimize computer vision models for manufacturing applications including inspection, process monitoring, anomaly detection, segmentation, and classification.
• Lead image dataset development activities including data collection, annotation strategies, data quality assessment, augmentation, and dataset curation to ensure robust model performance.
• Partner with manufacturing sites to identify data requirements, collect imagery, develop datasets, and execute model training activities.
• Support deployment of computer vision models through the Analytics for Manufacturing Imaging (AMI) platform.
• Collaborate with integration engineers and deployment teams to implement end-to-end VPM solutions, including image acquisition, model execution, visualization, alerting, and monitoring workflows.
• Configure, test, troubleshoot, and improve model performance across development and production environments.
• Create and maintain reusable datasets, model templates, evaluation methodologies, and deployment workflows that accelerate future implementations.
• Coach and mentor site engineers, VPM champions, and project teams on computer vision development, model evaluation, and AI best practices.
• Deliver training materials, workshops, and technical documentation that improve adoption and self-sufficiency across manufacturing sites.
• Support multiple concurrent VPM deployments while helping scale AI-enabled manufacturing capabilities across Medtronic's global manufacturing network.
• Evaluate emerging computer vision technologies, foundation models, and AI tools that can improve deployment speed, model accuracy, and user adoption.
• Contribute to standards and best practices for data collection, model development, validation, deployment, and lifecycle management across the VPM portfolio.

Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience with a bachelor's degree or 5+ years of experience with an advanced degree
• 3+ years experience applying AI, analytics, and computer vision solutions within manufacturing, automation, or operations
• 3+ years experience developing, training, and deploying computer vision models in production environments

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous Medtronic Experience
• Extensive Experience with industrial machine vision software such as MVTec HALCON
• Experience with model evaluation, validation, explainability, performance monitoring, and lifecycle management
• Experience collecting, curating, annotating, and managing image datasets for industrial AI applications
• Experience working with industrial vision systems, machine vision hardware, cameras, lighting, optics, or image acquisition systems
• Knowledge of traditional machine vision techniques including geometric measurement, feature extraction, edge detection, pattern matching, OCR/OCV, and rule-based inspection systems
• Knowledge of manufacturing processes, quality systems, validation requirements, and operational technology (OT) environments
• Experience partnering with manufacturing engineers, process engineers, automation engineers, quality engineers, and site operations teams
• Experience developing technical documentation, implementation playbooks, training materials, and best practices that enable scalable adoption of AI capabilities
• Demonstrated ability to coach, mentor, and upskill technical teams on computer vision, machine learning, and AI deployment best practices
• Experience leading multiple concurrent deployments while balancing technical execution, stakeholder engagement, and continuous improvement initiatives
• Passion for democratizing AI capabilities and building scalable, reusable solutions that accelerate adoption across a global manufacturing network
• Understanding of IQ/OQ/PQ, equipment validation, and change control practices in regulated manufacturing environments
• Experience with containerized AI deployments using Docker and Kubernetes

Pay

Salary range: $160,800.00 – $241,200.00 for U.S. locations (excluding Puerto Rico). This position is eligible for a short-term incentive called the Medtronic Incentive Plan (MIP). The offered rate complies with federal and local regulations and may vary based on factors such as experience, certification/education, market conditions, and location.