Senior Software Engineer, Mapping - Autonomous Vehicles

NVIDIA; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 152,000 - 288,000; Full time

Job summary

NVIDIA DRIVE maps team is looking for engineers to design and implement map-based driving algorithms and in-vehicle software for autonomous vehicles. You will help architect health monitors and data fusion with perception, and you will develop highly efficient C++14+ code for in-car deployment.

Candidate should have a strong background in computer vision, ML, 3D geometry, and robotics, with hands-on experience using AI tooling and prompt-oriented collaboration.

Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science or equivalent required.
• 4+ years of relevant experience.
• Strong background in computer vision, 3D geometry and ML.
• Hands-on experience with AI tooling and code assistants.
• Passion for robotics and autonomous vehicles.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop map-based driving algorithms.
• Architect map provider health monitors and data fusion with perception.
• Develop efficient in-vehicle C++14+ code.
• Integrate algorithms into NVIDIA AV core.
• Research transformer-based models for graphs.
• Build evaluation frameworks for large-scale LLMs.
• Fine-tune SOTA models on domain data.
• Create scalable map-building workflows using Python/JS/TS.
• Analyze map data and system performance.

Skills

Computer vision

3D geometry

Machine learning

Prompt engineering

Robotics and autonomous vehicles

Education

BS in Computer Science

Tools

Claude CLI

Cursor

AI code assistants

Job description

Nvidia DRIVE platform offers solutions to build safe, scalable, AI-enabled Autonomous Vehicles. The end‑to‑end full stack platform spans from in‑car supercomputers to cloud‑scale training and simulation. Our goal is to ship cars that continuously learn and improve, bringing the future of self‑driving to today’s roads.

We are looking for passionate, AI-powered, engineers for the DRIVE Mapping team. Maps play important roles in localization, routing, and navigation. Maps offer redundancy for live sensor perceptions increasing the safety of the vehicle. In this role, you will help deliver the SD maps to all in‑car consumers in the most efficient way. We are seeking the best engineers motivated about solving complex problems for self‑driving cars with a background in software design, embedded software, working on real‑time software and operating systems. Are you interested in inventing human level AI for navigation in the unconstrained world under any conditions? If so, join us!

What You'll Be Doing

• Design and develop algorithms for map‑based driving products
• Architecture design for map provider, health monitors and data fusion with perception
• Develop highly efficient in‑vehicle code in C++14 or later
• Design and integrate algorithmic solutions into the core of NVIDIA AV
• Research, and develop transformer based models tailored for graphs
• Implement evaluation frameworks to measure performance of large scale LLM’s
• Analyze and fine‑tune SOTA pretrained models on domain specific datasets
• Build automated map content analysis in Python, JavaScript or TypeScript
• Create scalable and distributed map‑building workflows

What We Need To See

• 4+ years with BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• Background in computer vision, 3D geometry and machine learning
• Heavy AI user for day‑to‑day development (design, coding, review, and testing)
• Hands‑on experience with tools like Claude CLI, Cursor, and other advanced code assistants
• Strong prompt‑crafting skills: knows how to break problems down, provide context, and iterate with AI to reach robust solutions
• Passion for robotics and autonomous vehicles

Ways To Stand Out From The Crowd

• Prior experience with any navigation maps such as NDS.Live, Open Street Maps (OSM) etc.
• Software development on embedded or automotive platforms.
• Knowledge of gRPC, Flat Buffers and Protocol Buffers
• Experience with GPGPU programming (CUDA)

We believe, realizing self‑driving vehicles will be a defining contribution of our generation which can reduce ~1.25 million deaths per year world-wide due to road traffic accidents. We have the funding and the scale, but we need your help on our team. NVIDIA is widely recognized as one of the best places to work. You are invited to do your life’s best work and get surrounded by some of the most forward‑thinking and hardworking people in the world!

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 152,000 USD - 241,500 USD for Level 3, and 184,000 USD - 287,500 USD for Level 4.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until August 10, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive 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.

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