Principal OEM Execution Lead, Autonomous Driving Solutions

NVIDIA; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 272,000 - 431,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

NVIDIA seeks an experienced engineering execution leader to drive NDAS adaptation, integration, and production readiness for major automotive OEMs. You will coordinate across NVIDIA and OEM teams, shaping requirements, architecture, and validation strategies to achieve production-worthy deployments.

The role requires 15+ years in automotive software and a strong track record delivering complex programs. You will travel as needed and lead with ownership, rigor, and collaboration to scale NDAS

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or related field.
• 15+ years of relevant automotive software, autonomous driving, embedded systems, or similar domain.
• Demonstrated success leading complex automotive software programs with OEMs.
• Strong understanding of system and software architecture, networks, and validation.

Responsibilities

• Lead NDAS execution with major OEMs across the full program lifecycle from definition to production ramp.
• Translate OEM requirements into commitments for NVIDIA teams and build reusable workflows.
• Drive multi-functional implementation across autonomous-driving features, safety, cybersecurity, validation, and release.
• Establish operating cadence with measurable readiness metrics and risk management.
• Direct technical issue resolution across systems and development groups to ensure timely progress.
• Represent program health in reviews with OEM leaders and NVIDIA executives.

Skills

Autonomous driving leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Program management

Systems engineering

Education

BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or related field

Tools

Automotive SPICE

ISO 26262

ISO/SAE 21434

SOTIF

Job description

Own the end-to-end execution that takes NVIDIA DRIVE Autonomous Driving Software (NDAS) from product definition to production deployment across major OEM vehicle lines. We are seeking an accomplished engineering execution leader to lead adaptation, integration, validation, and production readiness of NVIDIA Autonomous driving solution (NDAS) for strategic automotive OEMs. You will work between NVIDIA product and engineering teams and the OEM's vehicle, software, systems, and validation groups.

The role involves converting an agreed feature set into a deliverable vehicle program. This entails clarifying requirements, coordinating interfaces and responsibilities, setting the engineering plan, building consistent productization workflows, and managing issue resolution. You will influence teams such as systems engineering, autonomous-driving development, platform software, functional safety, cybersecurity, quality, validation, release, and customer engineering.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead NDAS execution with major OEMs across the full program lifecycle — from feature definition and technical alignment through vehicle integration, validation, launch, and production ramp — owning the coordinated engineering plan per vehicle line, including requirements, architecture, adaptation scope, achievements, staffing, validation strategy, release criteria, and production-readiness gates.
• Translate OEM vehicle requirements and use cases into clear commitments for NVIDIA teams, while ensuring OEM partners understand product capabilities, constraints, assumptions, and the work required on their side; build scalable, repeatable workflows for adapting NDAS to specific OEM platforms, vehicle architectures, sensor configurations, compute platforms, networks, and development processes.
• Drive multi-functional implementation across autonomous-driving features, systems, platform software, vehicle integration, functional safety, cybersecurity, validation, quality, release, and field engineering.
• Establish a rigorous operating cadence with actionable achievements, objective readiness metrics, risk and dependency management, decision logs, and clear paths for addressing customer concerns that block progress.
• Direct technical issue resolution across systems, safety, security, and development groups — determining root causes, clarifying ownership, surfacing tradeoffs, and ensuring lasting closure without slowing program progress.
• Represent overall program health and technical readiness in reviews with OEM engineering leaders and NVIDIA executives, communicating decisions, risks, recovery plans, and resource needs with clarity.
• Ensure lessons from each vehicle program feed back into the product, tooling, documentation, test infrastructure, and integration model to improve subsequent OEM programs.
• Develop leaders and strengthen a culture of ownership, transparency, engineering rigor, and customer dedication across the extended program team.

What We Need To See

• BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 15+ years of relevant experience in automotive software, autonomous driving, embedded systems, vehicle platforms, or another complex safety-critical product domain, including significant technical and organizational leadership.
• Demonstrated success taking a complex automotive software product from requirements and architecture through integration, validation, SOP, and production support with a major OEM.
• Strong technical understanding of system and software architecture, embedded compute, vehicle networks, sensor and actuator interfaces, diagnostics, software release processes, and system-level validation.
• Proven ability to lead large multi-functional programs in a matrixed organization and to resolve ambiguous, high-impact issues spanning organizational boundaries.
• Working knowledge of automotive development and compliance practices such as Automotive SPICE, ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, SOTIF, cybersecurity, change control, and production-quality processes.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, along with customer-facing leadership with the judgment to balance OEM priorities, product integrity, safety, schedule, quality, and long-term platform scalability.
• Willingness to travel to OEM and engineering sites as program needs require.

Ways To Stand Out From The Crowd

• Direct leadership experience launching L2+/L3 autonomous-driving or advanced driver-assistance functions on multiple vehicle lines.
• Experience with centralized vehicle compute, DRIVE OS, AUTOSAR, real-time operating systems, middleware, sensor integration, data collection, simulation, SIL/HIL/VIL, and fleet validation.
• A record of converting customer-specific integration work into reusable platform capabilities and scalable engineering workflows.
• Experience leading distributed engineering organizations and joint execution models across North America, Europe, and Asia.
• The ability to translate an executive decision into the corresponding system behavior, logs, interfaces, test evidence, and corrective action required to resolve the issue.

NVIDIA is building the accelerated computing platform for autonomous vehicles and physical AI. This role offers the opportunity to develop how a full-stack autonomous-driving product is industrialized with the world's leading automakers. You will turn advanced AI and software into safe, scalable, production vehicles. Join us and be part of something outstanding!

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 272,000 USD - 431,250 USD.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until September 25, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

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