Software Engineer - Collision Avoidance System Metrics

AI Chopping Block; Foster City (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

AI Chopping Block seeks a CAS Verification & Validation engineer to help analyze vast urban driving data and define performance metrics for autonomous systems. You will work across cross-functional teams to validate safety-critical components and ensure rigorous measurement of system behavior.

The role requires strong programming skills in C++ or Python, experience with large-scale data processing, and a passion for advancing autonomous driving safety through quantitative analysis.

Qualifications

• BS, MS, or PhD in computer science or a related field.
• Fluency in C++ and/or Python.
• Extensive experience with programming and algorithm design.

Responsibilities

• Apply distributed computing algorithms to analyze petabytes of urban driving data.
• Develop metrics and tools to analyze errors and system improvements.
• Work closely with CAS engineers to evaluate system performance.
• Collaborate with Perception engineers to define metrics for autonomous driving.
• Partner with Planning engineers to measure performance in complex urban environments.

Skills

Programming

Algorithm design

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or related field

Tools

C++

Python

Job description

The Collision Avoidance System (CAS) is responsible for detecting and reacting to imminent collision situations in support of our vehicle’s overall safety goals. CAS Perception is responsible for processing raw sensor data from our vehicle’s world-class sensor suite using a combination of geometric, interpretable algorithms and deep learning to detect near-collisions with obstacles along our intended driving path, in the most challenging dense urban environments and under tight compute resource constraints. Overall CAS is parallel and complementary to our Main Artificial Intelligence (AI) autonomy stack, and has a close relationship with our vehicle hardware and safety teams in order to architect redundancy into our overall driving system.

The CAS Verification & Validation (CAS V&V) is a multidisciplinary team data, software and systems engineers defining and building metrics to measure the Collision Avoidance System performance and work with the Systems Design and Mission Assurance (SDMA) and QA teams to develop validation plans for the features.

In this role, you will:

• Apply distributed computing algorithms to analyze petabytes of urban driving data.
• Develop metrics and tools to analyze errors and system improvements.
• Work closely with CAS engineers to evaluate system performance.
• Collaborate with Perception engineers to define metrics for autonomous driving.
• Partner with Planning engineers to measure performance in complex urban environments.

Qualifications:

• BS, MS, or PhD degree in computer science or a related field
• Fluency in C++ and/or Python
• Extensive experience with programming and algorithm design

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience with analysis of latency for safety-critical software systems
• Experience with petabyte-scale distributed computing (Spark, Databricks, generic MapReduce pipelines)
• Background in Bayesian statistics