Senior Manager - AV Evaluation

General Motors; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 296,000 - 454,000; Full time

Job summary

General Motors seeks a Senior Manager to lead autonomy evaluation—spanning platform, methodology, and organizational execution. You will guide strategy, roadmaps, and risk-aware validation across GM’s autonomous driving programs, partnering with multiple teams to ensure robust release decisions.

You will drive ML-based evaluation approaches, build scalable infra, and mentor a high-performing team of engineers and managers across domains, reporting to senior leadership.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in robotics, autonomous systems, data analysis, ML evaluation, or large-scale data/infrastructure.
• 5+ years people leadership in complex engineering orgs.
• Ownership of a distinct technical or business area with strategy and KPIs.
• Technical leadership in end-to-end services and architecture decisions.
• Production infrastructure experience for large-scale data processing and observability.
• Proficient in Python/C++ in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Own strategy, roadmap, and operating plan for autonomy evaluation area across methodology, platforms, and infrastructure.
• Define end-to-end evaluation strategy for autonomy performance including scenario coverage and risk assessment.
• Drive cross-functional alignment with Autonomy, Simulation, Systems, and Safety teams.
• Oversee evaluation approaches for ML components across perception, prediction, and planning.
• Develop new statistical/ML methods to quantify performance and detect behavior patterns.
• Leverage AI techniques to classify autonomy performance with human-in-the-loop review.
• Maintain high technical bar with design reviews, testing, and observability.
• Develop scalable evaluation infrastructure including data pipelines and workflow orchestration.

Skills

Robotics

Autonomous systems

Data analysis

ML evaluation

Leadership

Python/C++

SQL

Education

PhD/Master in CS/Robotics/ML/Data Science

Tools

ROS

PyTorch

SQL

Job description

Work Arrangement

This role is categorized as Remote/Hybrid. Remote: This role is based remotely but if you live within a 50-mile radius of [Austin, Detroit, Warren, Milford, Sunnyvale], you are expected to report to that location three times per week, at minimum.

About The Organization

The Evaluation team builds and evolves the evaluation ecosystem that powers the development and scaling of GM’s autonomous driving technology. We develop metrics, evaluation infrastructure, automated workflows, and analysis approaches that enable data-driven decisions across AV development and verification. Partnering with Autonomy, Simulation, Systems, and Safety teams, we act as system-level integrators and arbiters of end-to-end AV quality. We own large-scale test scenario libraries, continuous evaluation pipelines, and critical risk assessment and release-gating components, treating road testing, data mining, training, and metrics as first-class use cases in a unified analytics framework. By joining this team, you will help shape GM’s core evaluation platforms and infrastructure, turn system-level results into clear feedback for engineering and leadership, and help accelerate validated AV deployment at scale. We are looking for a Senior Manager to lead a critical autonomy evaluation area spanning platform, methodology, and organizational execution. This leader will combine deep technical judgment, strong people leadership, strategic planning, and cross‑functional influence to define how evaluation supports product, safety, and release decisions across GM’s autonomous driving programs.

What You’ll Do

• Own the strategy, roadmap, and operating plan for a distinct Autonomy Evaluation business area spanning methodology, platforms, and infrastructure ensuring alignment with autonomy product goals, safety priorities, and release needs.
• Define and evolve the end-to-end evaluation strategy for autonomy performance, including scenario coverage, behavioral quality measurement, trend detection, risk assessment, and release‑gating readiness.
• Drive cross‑functional alignment with Autonomy, Simulation, Systems, and Safety organizations to translate ambiguous validation needs into clear priorities, roadmaps, and execution plans.
• Oversee evaluation approaches for ML components across perception, prediction, and planning, ensuring methods are explainable, scalable, and useful to development and verification teams.
• Guide the team in developing new statistical and machine learning methods to quantify performance and identify behavior patterns across scenes and operational domains.
• Help the organization leverage emerging AI techniques, including VLMs and LLMs where appropriate, to classify autonomy performance and prioritize validation work with human‑in‑the‑loop review.
• Maintain a high technical bar through strong system design, code review, testing, observability, and engineering best practices.
• Drive the development of scalable evaluation infrastructure, including data pipelines, workflow orchestration, developer tooling, and service interfaces that improve reliability and iteration speed.
• Translate system‑level results and platform health signals into clear feedback for engineering and leadership and drive execution against high‑priority evaluation outcomes.

Leadership Responsibilities

• Build and lead a high‑performing, inclusive engineering organization through hiring, manager development, coaching, and feedback.
• Lead through managers and senior technical leaders, creating strong accountability, healthy operating rhythms, and clear ownership across teams.
• Create clarity across priorities, roadmaps, dependencies, and staffing plans for a technically complex, cross‑functional domain.
• Establish org‑level goals, KPIs, and success measures for evaluation quality, scalability, insight generation, and execution effectiveness.
• Guide investment and resource decisions across near‑term delivery and long‑term platform capabilities, balancing immediate program needs with durable infrastructure and methodology improvements.
• Raise the quality of execution through strong planning discipline, design reviews, metrics, and decision‑making mechanisms.
• Resolve complex cross‑team conflicts and align stakeholders to drive progress on high‑priority issues.
• Collaborate with senior leadership to shape long‑term strategy for autonomy evaluation and influence organization‑wide decisions that affect AV quality and release confidence.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• 10+ years of relevant experience in robotics, autonomous systems software, data analysis, ML evaluation, autonomy analytics, or large‑scale data/infrastructure platforms with a track record of delivering complex software or data systems.
• 5+ years of people leadership experience in complex engineering organizations, including leading managers or senior technical leaders.
• Demonstrated ownership of a distinct technical or business area, including strategy, roadmap, execution planning, KPI management, and cross‑functional outcomes.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, including driving architectural decisions, influencing cross‑team designs, and owning complex services or platforms end‑to‑end.
• Experience building or leading production infrastructure for large‑scale data processing, workflow orchestration, observability, and service reliability.
• Experience developing Python/C++ in production team environments, including testing, performance, and code review.
• Experience evaluating dynamic systems using numerical, statistical, and/or machine learning methods, including time‑series data, state derivatives, dynamics, and interconnected subsystems.
• Strong analytical curiosity and a disciplined approach to root‑causing anomalous data and system discrepancies.
• Strong ability to translate ambiguous evaluation needs and complex technical findings into clear plans, decisions, and communication for executive, engineering, and cross‑functional audiences.
• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering, Machine Learning, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• Experience in autonomous driving or field robotics, including interpreting results from simulation and field experiments.
• Experience evaluating robotics or AV systems using sensor data such as camera, lidar, and radar, and working with large‑scale time‑series analysis.
• Strong intuition for data visualization and the ability to turn high‑dimensional metrics into clear, trustworthy views for technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Familiarity with statistical modeling, experimental design, and hypothesis testing for autonomy or simulation evaluation.
• Proficiency in SQL and experience shaping logging, data schemas, and evaluation pipelines for large‑scale autonomy testing and performance monitoring.
• Experience with ROS or similar robotics/IPC frameworks, log pipelines, experiment databases, platform services, or evaluation infrastructure.
• Prior experience with computational geometry, linear algebra, PyTorch, and ML techniques applied to perception, prediction, planning, or control.
• Background contributing to release gating, risk assessment, and safety‑related decisions for autonomy systems.
• Experience using AI‑assisted development and analytics tools to improve engineering productivity and evaluation coverage.

Compensation

The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of New York, Colorado, California, or Washington.

• The salary range for this role: $296,300 - $453,900. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
• Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
• Benefits: GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs. Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.

Company Vehicle

Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.

About GM

Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.

Why Join Us

We believe we all must make a choice every day – individually and collectively – to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.

Benefits Overview

From day one, we’re looking out for your well‑being–at work and at home–so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.

Non‑Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)

General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.

All employment decisions are made on a non‑discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.

Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role‑related assessment(s) and/or a pre‑employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.

Accommodations

General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us or call us at 1-800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.