Senior Autonomy Systems Architect

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

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits package

401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purch?a

Job summary

Rivian is seeking a senior individual contributor to define, validate, and maintain a coherent system architecture for autonomous driving. The role balances high-performance compute with stringent safety and redundancy standards, leveraging extensive AV program experience.

The successful candidate will lead architecture reviews, drive cross-functional consensus across software, hardware, compliance, and leadership, and ensure long-term maintainability of design documents and interfaces.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Systems Engineering or related field.
• 10+ years (Master’s)/8+ years (Ph.D) in systems engineering or software development in autonomous driving or robotics.
• Expertise in ML-driven autonomous vehicle stacks and sensor data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Synthesize architectures and requirements across Sensing, Compute and Actuation into a unified autonomy architecture.
• Lead trade-off studies and provide data-driven leadership recommendations.
• Lead fail-operational strategy for different failure modes in autonomy sensing, compute, and actuation.
• Identify functional/performance gaps in current architectures.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams to ensure infrastructure systems are appropriately sized and redundant.
• Maintain a big-picture view to ensure architectural coherence.
• Standardize interfaces across hardware versions and vehicle platforms.
• Maintain rigorous architectural diagrams and design assumptions for audits.
• Serve as primary representative for Autonomy in vehicle-level design reviews.

Skills

AV architecture

System engineering

ML for AV

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Education

Master’s or PhD in CS/Robotics/Systems Eng

Job description

Rivian is seeking a senior individual contributor to define, validate, and maintain a coherent system architecture for autonomous driving. The role balances high-performance compute with stringent safety and redundancy standards, leveraging extensive AV program experience.

The successful candidate will lead architecture reviews, drive cross-functional consensus across software, hardware, compliance, and leadership, and ensure long-term maintainability of design documents and interfaces.