Senior Software Engineer, Onboard Autonomy

Nuro; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 193,930 - 291,150; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual performance bonus

Equity options

Competitive benefits package

Job summary

A robotics company is seeking an Autonomy Engineer in Mountain View, California. The role involves developing and deploying robust onboard autonomy behaviors and optimizing performance under real-world constraints. Ideal candidates have strong software engineering skills in C++ or Rust and experience with real-time systems. This position offers a competitive salary range between $193,930 and $291,150 per year, along with an annual performance bonus and equity options.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering skills in C++ and/or Rust.
• Experience shipping software that runs on-device with real-world constraints.
• Understanding of autonomy fundamentals: planning, state estimation/localization, controls.

Responsibilities

• Develop, integrate, and deploy onboard autonomy behaviors.
• Implement and maintain real-time decision-making components.
• Optimize autonomy performance for latency and resource usage.

Skills

Strong software engineering skills in C++ and/or Rust

Experience shipping real-time systems

Understanding of autonomy fundamentals

Experience with robotics middleware

Proficiency with debugging and performance tools

Strong testing discipline

Tools

ROS/ROS 2

gdb/lldb

NVIDIA Jetson

Job description

About The Role

We’re looking for an Autonomy Engineer focused on onboard autonomy—the software that runs on the robot/vehicle/embedded computer and makes real-time decisions using onboard sensors and compute. You’ll build and ship reliable autonomy features that operate under tight latency, compute, and safety constraints in the real world.

What You’ll Do

• Develop, integrate, and deploy onboard autonomy behaviors (e.g., navigation, obstacle avoidance, lane/route following, docking, interaction behaviors).
• Implement and maintain real-time decision-making components: behavior planning, state machines/behavior trees, local planning, and control interfaces.
• Build robust sensor-driven autonomy pipelines on-device (camera, lidar, radar, IMU, wheel odometry, GNSS), including synchronization, calibration hooks, and fault handling.
• Optimize autonomy performance for latency, CPU/GPU usage, memory, and power on embedded compute (e.g., NVIDIA Jetson, x86 edge boxes, custom ECUs).
• Design and implement safety and fallback strategies: health monitoring, degraded modes, watchdogs, safe-stop, and redundancy-aware logic.
• Own the autonomy stack’s on-robot integration: bring-up, debugging, profiling, logging, and release validation on real hardware.
• Improve onboard observability: structured logs, traces, metrics, event recording, and tools to support incident review and rapid iteration.
• Collaborate with perception, mapping/localization, controls, hardware, and systems teams to define clear interfaces and ship end-to-end features.
• Participate in field testing and root-cause analysis of autonomy issues seen in real deployments.

Required Experience

• Strong software engineering skills in C++ and/or Rust (Python acceptable as a supporting language).
• Experience shipping software that runs on-device with real-world constraints (embedded Linux, real-time-ish systems, performance-sensitive code).
• Understanding of autonomy fundamentals: planning, state estimation/localization, controls, and how they interface (you don’t need to be an expert in all).
• Experience with robotics middleware and tooling (commonly ROS/ROS 2, custom pub/sub frameworks, gRPC, DDS, etc.).
• Proficiency with debugging and performance tools (e.g., gdb/lldb, perf, flamegraphs, profiling GPU workloads, log/trace analysis).
• Strong testing discipline: unit/integration tests, simulation/HIL concepts, and safe rollout practices for autonomy.

Nice to Have

• Experience with behavior trees (e.g., BehaviorTree.CPP), hierarchical state machines, or mission/task planning.
• Practical experience with local planners (trajectory rollout, MPC, sampling-based methods) and real-time control loops.
• Sensor fusion experience (EKF/UKF), time sync, calibration, and handling intermittent sensors.
• Experience with mapping and localization stacks (scan matching, visual-inertial odometry, SLAM, map-based localization).
• Familiarity with safety standards/processes (e.g., ISO 26262 concepts, FMEA, hazard analysis) depending on domain.
• Experience deploying autonomy to fleets: OTA updates, versioning, configuration management, and field telemetry.
• Experience in inference optimization

At Nuro, we celebrate differences and are committed to a diverse workplace that fosters inclusion and psychological safety for all employees. Nuro is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and expressly prohibits any form of workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristics.

At Nuro, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package. For this position, the reasonably expected pay range is between $193,930 and $291,150/year for the level at which this job has been scoped. Your base pay will depend on several factors, including your experience, qualifications, education, location, and skills. In the event that you are considered for a different level, a higher or lower pay range would apply. This position is also eligible for an annual performance bonus, equity, and a competitive benefits package.