Senior Autonomy Systems Architect

Rivian; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 265,000 - 331,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Short-term disability

Long-term disability

401(k) Plan

Employee Stock Purchase Program

Paid vacation

Paid sick leave

Job summary

Rivian seeks an experienced architect to define, validate, and maintain a coherent system architecture balancing high-performance compute with safety and redundancy for autonomous driving. This is a senior, individual-contributor role guiding AV architecture across sensing, compute, and actuation domains.

The candidate will lead trade-off studies, coordinate with hardware, software, regulatory, and leadership teams, and maintain rigorous architectural documentation for audits and future vehicle

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in a technical field with focus on autonomous systems.
• Experience leading architecture of complex AV/system-of-systems from concept to deployment.
• Knowledge of sensor data pipelines and safety standards.

Responsibilities

• Synthesize architectures from sensing, compute, and actuation into unified autonomy architecture.
• Lead trade-off studies and data-driven recommendations to leadership.
• Lead fail-operational strategy for autonomy to achieve minimum risk maneuvers.
• Identify gaps and drive mitigations with cross-functional teams.
• Ensure infrastructure systems are sized and redundant for autonomy demands.
• Maintain a big-picture view to standardize interfaces across platforms.
• Maintain architectural diagrams and design assumptions for audits.
• Represent Autonomy team in vehicle-level design reviews.
• Drive cross-functional consensus on architecture and roadmap.

Skills

ML-driven AV stacks

LiDAR

Radar

Cameras

GNSS

IMU

Edge compute

ISO 26262

SOTIF ISO 21448

Strong communication

Education

Master’s or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Robotics, Systems Engineering or related field

Job description

Rivian seeks an experienced architect to define, validate, and maintain a coherent system architecture balancing high-performance compute with safety and redundancy for autonomous driving. This is a senior, individual-contributor role guiding AV architecture across sensing, compute, and actuation domains.

The candidate will lead trade-off studies, coordinate with hardware, software, regulatory, and leadership teams, and maintain rigorous architectural documentation for audits and future vehicle