Job Description

Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. Through our family of apps and services, we're building a different kind of company that connects billions of people around the world, gives them ways to share what matters most to them, and helps bring people closer together. Whether we're creating new products or helping a small business expand its reach, people at Facebook are builders at heart. Our global teams are constantly iterating, solving problems, and working together to empower people around the world to build community and connect in meaningful ways. Together, we can help people build stronger communities - we're just getting started.

Perception is at the center of our research, as it informs our work in displays, optics, rendering, and practically everything in the AR/VR system. As a Research Scientist in the Applied Perception Science team in AR/VR at Facebook in Redmond, WA, you will be tackling the scientific challenges that define cutting-edge augmented & virtual reality, addressing heretofore unanswered questions in vision science, perception, displays, and optics research. This involves conducting research at the intersection of basic and applied science, as it informs our research directions and identifies opportunities for revolutions in our metrics and experiences. We are committed to a whole-system, multidisciplinary approach to perception research and have the opportunity to both collaborate with academic institutions as well as publish and disseminate our work. Projects take advantage of internal resources in mechanical, electrical, optical, and software engineering, allowing us to confront scientific and product engineering challenges which cannot necessarily be answered with existing products or prototypes.

We are seeking a Research Scientist who is at core an expert of visual perception and is excited about doing research that helps us inform AR/VR display requirements and architectures. We seek out specific expertise in one or a combination in the following areas: spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity, color vision, motion perception, computational modeling of the visual system, visual quality metrics, visual ergonomics, efficient coding, text legibility, spatial vision, vergence/accommodation interactions, or eye-movements.

The ideal candidate will have a passion for the intersection of perception science, display, optical, and system engineering, have experience in vision science, low-level visual processes, and psychophysics.

Responsibilities

• Conduct research in display engineering and how novel display, and/or optical systems can impact perceived image quality.
• Derive novel experimental and/or modeling approaches to assess the impact of luminance, color, spatial and temporal properties impact visual quality in AR/VR.
• Work with cross-functional partners in research and product development to understand and prioritize perceptual needs.
• Employ existing knowledge of human sensory encoding and display quality metrics to help guide engineering efforts towards effective display, optical, and rendering solutions.
• Detect & identify possible perceptual artifacts that can arise from novel prototypical displays from architectural specifications and proposals.
• Communicate the findings from modeling, psychophysics, & empirical experiments to help set target requirements for display systems in AR/VR.
  

Minimum Qualification

• Advanced Degree in vision science, perceptual psychology, optics, computational imaging, biomedical engineering, or a related field with an emphasis on perceptual modeling, psychophysics, and/or metrics evaluating perceptual performance.
• Knowledge of how display characteristics interact with visual encoding processes in the generation of visual artifacts.
• 2+ years experience with MATLAB, Python, or similar program for stimulus display and analysis.
• Experience with research publicized in high-impact journals and international conference presentations or publications.
  
  

Preferred Qualification

• PhD in vision science, perceptual psychology, optics, computational imaging, biomedical engineering, or a related field with an emphasis on perceptual modeling, psychophysics, and/or metrics evaluating perceptual performance.
• 2+ years of postdoctoral training, or industry experience conducting research investigating perceptual issues with displays, or visual processing.
• Academic background in spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity, low-level vision, color perception, retinal physiology and/or modeling.
• Experience working on the evaluation and engineering of display electronics and controllers.
• Knowledge of standard image quality metrics, and deriving new metrics for novel environments and/or display architectures.
• Knowledge of the complete image processing pipeline, from capture through reproduction through professional experience, publications and/or academic training.
• 3+ years experience in hardware design and prototyping hardware systems to simulate issues with proposed and novel display and hardware architecture.
• Experience in working on team that ships product.
  

Facebook is proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Facebook is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at accommodations-ext@fb.com.