Director, Autonomy Behavior

May Mobility, Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 200,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

May Mobility, Inc. is seeking a Director of Autonomy to lead the vision, strategy and technical roadmap of the Autonomy Behavior team.

This role sits at the intersection of cutting-edge autonomous driving tech and transformative mobility, reporting to the VP of Autonomy and guiding engineering managers and engineers. You will champion May Mobility’s MPDM technology, collaborate across Vehicle Engineering, Software, Data and Infrastructure, and Operations to deploy robust autonomy solutions and

Qualifications

• PhD or master's in a technical field (robotics, CS, CE, aerospace, physics)
• Experience solving complex autonomy problems as principal investigator, staff or director
• 7+ years of software-focused engineering in robotics or mission-critical systems
• 5+ years of management experience leading 10+ engineers
• Experience developing and/or using MPDM
• Strong leadership, communication and cross-functional collaboration skills

Responsibilities

• Lead vision, strategy and technical roadmap of the Autonomy Behavior team.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Vehicle Engineering, Software, Data & Infrastructure and Operations leaders to deploy autonomy solutions.
• Deliver advances to MPDM; improve simulations, reward functions, policies and control algorithms.
• Ensure autonomy tech performs in commercial deployments and triage issues effectively.
• Maintain knowledge of research in planning, automated decision making and ML techniques like reinforcement learning.
• Develop and track KPIs to measure autonomy performance.
• Identify gaps and map a roadmap aligned with other functions.
• Oversee planning, execution and success of large technical projects and lead the team.

Skills

Autonomy software

Leadership

Roadmap planning

Reinforcement learning

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication

Risk management

Education

PhD or Master's in robotics/CS/CE/AI/physics

Tools

MPDM

Job description

The Director of Autonomy will be responsible for leading the vision, strategy, and technical roadmap of the Autonomy Behavior team at May Mobility. The Director of Autonomy plays a key role in advancing May’s unique, innovative Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology. MPDM enables May to build and scale its autonomy capabilities much more efficiently than any of its competitors.

This is a unique opportunity to sit at the crossroads of cutting-edge autonomous driving technology, transformative mobility, and the products that enable change in the transportation landscape of cities today.

This position reports to the Vice President of Autonomy and is responsible for providing world class leadership to our autonomy engineering managers and engineers, in order to propel their professional success as they develop industry-leading technology advancements.

• Be a technical thought leader to champion May Mobility’s mission, vision, values and company priorities to develop and execute autonomy strategy with fellow executives and engineering leaders.
• Work cross-functionally with Vehicle Engineering; Software, Data and Infrastructure; and Operations leaders to solve and deploy solutions to autonomy challenges.
• Deliver innovative and robust advances to May’s MPDM technology including faster execution, more accurate MPDM simulations, effective reward functions, improved and expressive policies, compatible and stable control algorithms and any other technological aspect required to advance MPDM, May’s core technology.
• Ensure May’s core MPDM technologies operate efficiently and effectively in commercial deployments, including supporting effective triage and resolution of issues related to this technology.
• Maintain an understanding of related research fields including planning, automated decision making, and various machine learning techniques such as reinforcement learning.
• Develop and maintain key performance indicators (KPIs) to track autonomy performance
• Identify key gaps and challenges in May’s autonomy technology including MPDM and control algorithms.
• Construct and execute a roadmap to solve key challenges and work with other autonomy leaders to synchronize this roadmap with the roadmaps of other functions.
• Identify monthly, quarterly and yearly milestones to iteratively improve performance in both the short and long term.
• Take responsibility for the overall planning, execution, and success of complex technical projects and provide the team with technical leadership.
• Help set perception team hiring targets. Interview, hire, and manage a diverse team of talented perception engineers and scientists.
• Oversee the escalation of critical issues and opportunities within the autonomy team’s leadership, driving clear recommendations to maximize the effectiveness of the team with respect to company priorities and strategy.

Skills and Abilities

Success in this role typically requires the following competencies:

• Deep technical knowledge and demonstrated success in delivering innovative solutions in one or more of the fields of planning, autonomous decision making, reinforcement learning, and computational prediction.
• A demonstrated strong attention to detail with the ability to understand, track, and efficiently mitigate technical, integration, and personnel risks.
• Demonstrated success in working in uncertain work environments with an ability to turn concepts and problems that are uncertain into effective, executable plans to resolve these issues.
• A proven ability to get the best out of others, set goals and expectations for others, communicate clearly and honestly, and discuss difficult topics.
• An ability to clearly and concisely communicate technical concepts including root cause analysis, technical challenges and their solutions, and results backed by data.
• Proven ability to work with other peers in related technical areas to jointly solve larger system issues.
• Proven ability to deliver under tight schedules.

Qualifications and Experience

Candidates most successful in this role typically hold the following qualifications or comparable knowledge or experience:

Required

• PhD or masters degree in a relevant, highly technical field (e.g. robotics, computer science, computer engineering, aerospace engineering, physics)
• A demonstrated ability to solve complex autonomy problems as a principal investigator, staff or principal engineer, or director (or equivalent role)
• 7+ years of software-focused engineering experience solving challenging robotics problems in mission critical software and/or robotic systems.
• Experience leading a team of 10+ engineers - setting goals, leading by example, handling challenging situations and failures
• Previous experience as individual contributor successfully developing and deploying innovative solutions in the autonomous vehicle or related space
• 5+ years of management experience
• Experience developing and/or using MPDM
• Deep understanding of the challenges facing autonomous vehicles as well as the state of the art in autonomy.

Physical Requirements

• Standard office working conditions which includes but is not limited to: