Lead Vehicle Reliability Technician

Aurora; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 96,000 - 154,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Aurora is seeking a Technical Lead for the Vehicle Reliability Engineering (VRE) team. Based in Mountain View or Pittsburgh, you will lead real-time troubleshooting, design internal tools, and drive operational SOPs to scale fleet reliability.

You will mentor engineers, own critical tooling, and partner with platform, cloud, and hardware teams to ensure safe, scalable autonomous operations. Hybrid work is offered, with in-office presence required to coordinate incidents and improvements.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on troubleshooting of complex hardware and software in live, real-time production or field support.
• 2+ years of software development experience with internal tools or services end-to-end.
• 5+ years administering and troubleshooting Linux systems in a support capacity.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring or developing less experienced technical staff.
• Strong technical writing skills with SOPs, runbooks, or design docs used by a team.
• Ability to operate independently and make engineering decisions under time pressure in safety‑critical environments.
• Ability to translate engineering constraints into operational guidance for non-technical Ops leads.

Responsibilities

• Serve as VRE’s senior technical authority for real-time troubleshooting of complex hardware and software issues affecting the autonomous fleet.
• Design, build, and own internal tools to scale troubleshooting and operations.
• Own SOPs, runbooks, and knowledge base for structured tooling consumption.
• Identify gaps in workflows and build tooling or process fixes to close them.
• Mentor and develop other VRE engineers and technicians, raising the technical bar.

Skills

Real-time troubleshooting

Internal tooling

Linux administration

Mentoring others

Technical writing

Python

Go

TypeScript

C++

Tools

Python

Go

TypeScript

C++

Job description

Who We Are

Aurora’s mission is to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly.

Aurora’s mission is to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. The Aurora Driver will create a new era in mobility and logistics, one that will bring a safer, more efficient, and more accessible future to everyone. At Aurora, you will tackle massively complex problems alongside other passionate, intelligent individuals, growing as an expert while expanding your knowledge. For the latest news from Aurora, visit aurora.tech or follow us on LinkedIn.

What We Are Looking For

Aurora hires talented people with diverse backgrounds who are ready to help build a transportation ecosystem that will make our roads safer, get crucial goods where they need to go, and make mobility more efficient and accessible for all.

We’re searching for a Technical Lead to join our Vehicle Reliability Engineering (VRE) team in Pittsburgh, PA, reporting to the VRE Support Manager. VRE is Aurora's real‑time technical support team — the critical bridge between Vehicle Operations and engineering that keeps our autonomous truck fleet running safely and reliably. This is a dual‑mandate role: you’ll be the team's top technical escalation point for complex fleet issues, and you’ll be building the tools and systems that let VRE operate at fleet scale. You’re equally comfortable diagnosing a live vehicle fault and shipping the internal tool that catches the next thousand of them automatically.

In this role you will

• Serve as VRE’s senior technical authority for real‑time troubleshooting of complex hardware and software issues affecting the autonomous vehicle fleet, partnering with onboard, platform, and cloud engineering teams to drive issues to root cause
• Design, build, and own the internal tools that scale VRE's troubleshooting capability, from requirements through deployment and ongoing support.
• Own troubleshooting SOPs, runbooks, and the team’s knowledge base, and drive them toward structured formats that VRE's own tooling and automation can consume directly.
• Identify recurring gaps in troubleshooting, triage, and escalation workflows, and independently prioritize and build the tooling or process fixes that close them
• Mentor and develop other VRE engineers and technicians, setting the technical bar for both troubleshooting practice and tooling/software quality on the team

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands‑on experience troubleshooting complex hardware and software systems in a live, real‑time production or field support environment
• 2+ years of software development experience (Python, Go, TypeScript, or C++), including designing, shipping, and maintaining internal tools or services end‑to‑end.
• 5+ years administering and troubleshooting Linux systems in a support capacity
• Demonstrated experience mentoring or developing less experienced technical staff
• Strong technical writing skills, with experience authoring documentation (SOPs, runbooks, design docs, or similar) relied on by a team
• Proven ability to operate independently and make sound engineering and operational decisions under time pressure in a safety‑critical environment.
• Ability to write clear and concise incident summaries for stakeholders and translate engineering constraints into operational guidance for non‑technical Ops leads.

Desirable Qualifications

• Prior automotive or autonomous vehicle experience, including sensor systems (lidar, radar, cameras)
• Experience with monorepo/Bazel‑based build systems, gRPC services, or cloud‑native architectures
• Familiarity with ITIL or other formal service‑management frameworks
• Strong computer networking background

For roles based in Pittsburgh, PA: The hourly wage range for this position is $41.75 - $66.75 per hour.

For roles based in Mountain View, CA: The hourly wage range for this position is $46.25 - $74.25 per hour.

Aurora’s pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, the successful candidate’s starting base pay will be determined based on factors including job‑related skills, experience, qualifications, relevant education or training, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future. The successful candidate will also be eligible for benefits.

Working at Aurora

At Aurora, we bring together extraordinarily talented and experienced people united by the strength of our values. We operate with integrity, set outrageous goals, and build a culture where we win together — all without any jerks.

We believe in‑person work increases collaboration, empathy and our ability to lead effectively. As a result, we operate in a hybrid work environment where Aurorans are in office at least 3 days per week.

Our Careers page provides insight into what it is like to work at Aurora, and you can find all the latest updates in our Newsroom.

Our commitment to safety

At the core of everything we do is our commitment to safety. Building best‑in‑class self‑driving technology will take time, and we believe that each employee at Aurora has a role in contributing to safety, every step of the way. Aurora expects commitment to our safety policies from every employee, and seeks candidates who take an active responsibility, can contribute to building an atmosphere of trust, and invest in the organization’s long‑term success by prioritizing working safely, no matter what.

Our commitment to inclusion

Aurora considers candidates without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy status, parent or caregiver status, ancestry, political affiliation, veteran and/or military status, physical or mental disability, or any other status protected by federal or state law. Aurora considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [e-mail].

For California applicants, information collected and processed as part of your application and any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Aurora’s California Employment Privacy Policy.