Principal Engineer – Team Lead, Behavior Safety & Metrics

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Nevada, +2 more states.

📋 Description

• Oversee evaluation initiatives for Prediction and Planning.

• Establish metrics for assessing and enhancing autonomous driving behavior.

• Serve as the primary authority on evaluations for Behavior teams.

• Formulate evaluation strategies for prediction and planning models, involving open-loop and simulation-based assessments.

• Create and execute advanced metrics for comprehensive model evaluation and system behavior analysis.

• Integrate counterfactual reasoning and reaction time analysis into evaluation frameworks.

• Design a data-mining strategy and evaluate the coverage of training and evaluation datasets.

• Develop tools and pipelines while identifying process inefficiencies.

• Collaborate with machine learning engineers, roboticists, Safety, Infrastructure, Operations, Legal, and Systems teams.

• Lead design enhancements to ensure features contribute positively to system safety, comfort, and assertiveness while meeting launch criteria.

• Influence the development, evaluation, and deployment of cutting-edge autonomous driving capabilities.

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree with 7+ years of experience in Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Robotics, or a comparable technical discipline (or Master’s/PhD with 5+ years of experience).

• Solid grounding in probability/statistics, data science, and scientific rigor as applied to complex, multi-agent systems.

• Proficient in Python, SQL, and data analysis (visualization, statistics) within production settings.

• Experience in defining performance targets and acceptance criteria related to safety, comfort, and assertiveness, along with the ability to produce analyses and evidence to support them.

• Proven capability to address technical challenges, analyze interdisciplinary problems, and propose innovative, sustainable solutions.

• Demonstrated ability to lead projects, foster alignment, and ensure stakeholder involvement throughout the development lifecycle.

• Working knowledge of hazard and safety analysis methodologies such as STPA, HAZOP, FMEA, and hazard analysis and risk assessment.

• Experience applying statistical and machine learning methods to quantify performance, identify regressions, and uncover patterns of system behavior at scale.

• Extensive experience in Prediction and/or Planning for autonomous robotics, including evaluating ML-based systems in operational environments.

• Familiarity with public AV datasets and benchmarks like the Waymo Open Dataset and nuScenes.

• Strong understanding of industry-standard metrics for trajectory forecasting and motion planning.

• Previous experience with building or utilizing data pipelines at scale.

• Excellent communication skills with a proven ability to collaborate across geographically distributed teams.

• Knowledge of SOTIF, ISO 26262, UL4600, AVSC behavior competencies, and other relevant industry standards.

• Candidates must meet U.S. employment eligibility verification requirements through E-Verify.

🏝️ Benefits

• Medical insurance.

• Dental insurance.

• Vision insurance.

• 401k with company matching.

• Health savings accounts.

• Life insurance.

• Pet insurance.

• Additional compensation may include bonuses or company equity.

• An inclusive and diverse work environment.