Senior SoC Architect: Automotive Compute & Security

Rivian; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 192,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) plan

Employee Stock Purchase Program

Comprehensive insurance (life/medical)

Paid vacation

Paid sick leave

Job summary

Rivian is seeking a Senior SoC Architect to shape the compute platforms for the next generation of electric vehicles. You will lead architecture definition from concept through production, partnering with hardware, software, safety, and silicon teams to deliver scalable, power-efficient solutions.

This senior IC architect role requires deep systems thinking, technical depth, and the ability to drive decisions with incomplete information.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or a related technical field.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve SoC and compute-platform architectures for automotive applications, including compute, memory, interconnect, I/O, and system integration.
• Translate vehicle, platform, software, and customer requirements into clear architectural specifications and measurable design goals.
• Lead tradeoff decisions across performance, power, cost, area, thermal constraints, reliability, schedule, and product scalability.
• Define partitioning strategies across CPUs, NPUs, DSPs, accelerators, safety islands, and other heterogeneous compute resources.
• Define memory hierarchies, cache-coherency models, interconnect fabrics, bandwidth budgets, and data-movement strategies for demanding vehicle workloads.
• Partner with silicon design, verification, physical design, firmware, operating-system, embedded-software, validation, and systems teams to move architecture into implementation.
• Establish performance models, workload assumptions, benchmarks, and analysis methods to validate architectural decisions early.
• Incorporate functional safety, cybersecurity, reliability, diagnostics, and fault-containment requirements throughout the architecture.
• Review and guide third-party IP selection, integration, and qualification where appropriate.
• Identify technical risks, close architectural gaps, and communicate decisions and tradeoffs to technical and executive stakeholders.
• Contribute to architecture roadmaps and reusable platform strategies across multiple vehicle programs and product generations.
• Mentor engineers and improve architecture practices, documentation, technical reviews, and decision-making across the organization.

Skills

Computer architecture

Memory systems

Heterogeneous compute

Performance analysis

Hardware security

Communication

Influence without authority

Education

Bachelor's degree in electrical/computer engineering/science

Job description

Rivian is seeking a Senior SoC Architect to shape the compute platforms for the next generation of electric vehicles. You will lead architecture definition from concept through production, partnering with hardware, software, safety, and silicon teams to deliver scalable, power-efficient solutions.

This senior IC architect role requires deep systems thinking, technical depth, and the ability to drive decisions with incomplete information.