Senior Research Scientist - Autonomous Vehicles

Socket.dev; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 192,000 - 356,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

NVIDIA is seeking a Sr Research Scientist for Autonomous Vehicles in Santa Clara, CA. This role focuses on designing and implementing advanced AV techniques, publishing impactful research, and collaborating across research and product teams to move innovations toward production systems.

The candidate will contribute to core AV topics, publish in top venues, and help advance safety, reliability, and performance of autonomous driving technologies at scale.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Computer Science/Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 6+ years of relevant research experience in vehicle/robot autonomy.
• Strong knowledge of theory and practice of vehicle/robot autonomy, or related area with interest in AVs.
• Track record of research excellence with publications in top conferences/journals and research artifacts like software projects.
• Excellent collaboration and interpersonal skills.
• Exceptional programming skills in Python; C++ and parallel programming (CUDA).
• Solid understanding of PyTorch and TensorFlow.

Responsibilities

• Designing and implementing cutting-edge techniques in vehicle autonomy.
• Publish and present original research; speak at conferences and events.
• Collaborate with research teams, internal product teams, and external researchers.
• Transfer and/or open-source developed technology to product groups.
• Collaborate with product teams to transfer results into production systems.

Skills

Python programming

C++ programming

CUDA parallel programming

Machine learning frameworks

Communication

Collaboration

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science/Engineering or related field

Tools

CUDA

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

We are now seeking a Sr Research Scientist for Autonomous Vehicles!
NVIDIA is recruiting top Senior Research Scientists for Autonomous Vehicle Research! AI-powered autonomous vehicles that can learn, reason, and interact with people are no longer science fiction. Self-driving cars, autonomous delivery vehicles, and autonomous construction vehicles, among others, are getting increasingly close to widespread deployment. However, fundamental research questions still need to be addressed for us to achieve full vehicle autonomy. For instance, how can we: Enable novel training paradigms that leverage simulation to train AV policies in closed-loop? Equip autonomous vehicles with online and offline assurances that meet the standards for safety-critical systems? Ensure that autonomous vehicles work seamlessly in new places?
These are some of the exciting questions that the NVIDIA Autonomous Vehicle Research group is tackling. We bring together a diverse, interdisciplinary research team working on core topics in vehicle autonomy, including agent behavior models, end-to-end AV architectures, AI safety, closed-loop training approaches, and AV foundation models (VLMs, reasoning models, etc.). Our focus is on basic and applied research; lab members are encouraged to publish their work and open-source code as well as provide real-world impact by deploying technology within production systems. NVIDIA is well known for its team culture, and lab researchers are able to closely interact with others within the company who are experts in perception systems, machine learning, and robotics. There is an opportunity to make a strong impact on products, while having the freedom and bandwidth to conduct ground-breaking publishable research.

What You'll Be Doing

• Designing and implementing cutting-edge techniques in the field of vehicle autonomy.
• Publish and present your original research, speak at conferences and events.
• Collaborate with other research team members, a diverse set of internal product teams, and external researchers.
• Have a broader impact through the transfer and/or open-source of the technology you've developed to relevant product groups.
• Collaborate closely with product teams to transfer research results into high-end, production-level systems.

What We Need To See

• Ph.D. in Computer Science/Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 6+ years of relevant research experience in the field of vehicle / robot autonomy.
• Strong knowledge of theory and practice of vehicle / robot autonomy, or a related area with a strong interest in connecting your work to autonomous vehicles.
• A track record of research excellence with your work published in top conferences and journals such as RSS, ICRA, IJRR, NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, TAC, etc, and other research artifacts such as software projects
• Excellent collaboration and interpersonal skills
• Exceptional programming skills in Python; C++ and parallel programming (e.g., CUDA).
• Solid understanding of common machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch and Tensorflow.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills are required along with the ability to work in a dynamic, research-focused team.

NVIDIA is widely considered to be one of the technology world’s most desirable employers. We have some of the most forward-thinking and hardworking people in the world working for us. Are you a creative and autonomous research scientist with a genuine passion for advancing the state of AI? If so, we want to hear from you!
Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 192,000 USD - 304,750 USD for Level 4, and 224,000 USD - 356,500 USD for Level 5.
You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.
Applications for this job will be accepted at least until January 13, 2026.
This posting is for an existing vacancy.
NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.
NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse 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.