Staff AI Engineer, Enterprise AI

Rivian VW Group; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Retirement savings

Time off

Family planning programs

Equity in RSUs

Job summary

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is seeking a senior software engineer to build AI-native developer tools and platforms. You will partner with engineering leaders across domains to productionize AI workflows and ensure scalable, secure, and cost-effective tooling.

You will mentor engineers, design portable abstractions across model providers, and help shape the direction of AI-enabled development across the organization, in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years at Staff level or 12+ years at Senior Staff level in software engineering.
• Hands-on experience building and operating AI-native developer tools or internal platforms.
• Experience with language models and agents in production across open-source and proprietary models.
• Familiarity with security, privacy, and auditability for AI-enabled tooling.
• Strong communication skills with engineering leaders across domains.

Responsibilities

• Build reusable AI tooling across agent runtimes, evaluation, skills, plugins, and loops; shape the roadmap.
• Design and build AI tooling compatible with multiple models to adapt as the landscape evolves.
• Integrate AI tooling across development lifecycle; collaborate with engineering leaders across domains.
• Lead design reviews and deliver AI services and developer tools end to end, ensuring reliability, observability, and cost efficiency.
• Collaborate to identify patterns, reuse components, and minimize duplicate work.
• Develop evaluation, guardrails, and monitoring for quality, safety, and developer impact across models.
• Measure tooling impact on cycle time, quality, and time saved on low-value work.
• Make AI workloads fast and affordable; provide build-versus-buy guidance.
• Embed security, privacy, and auditability into every tool with Security, Compliance, and Audit teams from start.
• Work with DevEx, IT, and domain teams to shape AI-native development workflows that engineers want to use.
• Mentor engineers and raise code quality through reviews and pairing.
• Stay at the frontier of AI in software development and bring production-ready approaches to the platform.

Skills

AI tooling

Software development

Mentoring

Security/compliance

Cross-team collaboration

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science or related field

Tools

CI/CD systems

AI models & agents

Job description

About Us

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders with a clear vision for automotive’s next chapter. From operating systems to zonal controllers to cloud and connectivity solutions, we’re addressing the challenges of electric vehicles through technology that will set the standards for software-defined vehicles around the world.

The road to the future is uncharted. By combining our expertise across connectivity, AI, security and more, we’ll map a new way forward. Working together, we’ll create a future that’s more connected, more intelligent, more sustainable for everyone.

Role Summary

AI is already changing how our engineers write, review, test, and ship software across Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies (RVT). Many useful tools already exist. The next step is to productionize them and make them work across teams, so each win scales across the company. You'll be one of the engineers who builds that work, partnering closely with the team and with engineering leaders across domains to make AI a natural part of how we build.

Responsibilities

• Build reusable AI tooling across agent runtimes, evaluation, skills, plugins, and agentic loops, and help shape the roadmap through the work itself.

• Design and build AI tooling that works with any model, open-source or proprietary, so teams can switch as the model landscape evolves without rebuilding their workflows.

• Put AI to work across the development lifecycle, from code review and testing to triage, in close collaboration with engineering leaders in every domain.

• Lead design reviews and build prioritized AI services and developer tools end to end, owning their reliability, observability, and cost.

• Collaborate across engineering groups to spot shared patterns, reuse components, and stop duplicate work before it starts.

• Build evaluation, guardrails, and monitoring that measure quality, safety, and developer impact across open-source and proprietary models.

• Measure and report the impact of new tooling in terms engineers feel: cycle time, quality, and hours returned from low-value work.

• Make AI workloads fast and affordable, and bring clear build-versus-buy recommendations to the team.

• Build security, privacy, and auditability into every tool, working alongside Security, Compliance, and Audit partners from the start.

• Work with DevEx, IT, and domain teams to shape AI-native development workflows that engineers actually want to use.

• Mentor engineers across levels, and raise the bar on code quality, design, and engineering practices through reviews and pairing.

• Stay at the frontier of AI, especially for software development, and bring the approaches that are production-ready into the platform.

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.

• 8+ years (Staff) or 12+ years (Senior Staff) in software engineering, with a track record of delivering production systems in enterprise environments.

• Hands-on experience building and operating AI-native developer tools, internal platforms, or CI/CD systems in production.

• Hands-on experience with language models and agents, including tool use, context management, and evaluation in production, across both open-source and proprietary models.

• Deep familiarity with the latest developments in AI, especially as they apply to software development, and the judgment to separate what's production-ready from what isn't yet.

• Experience designing abstractions that keep tooling portable across model providers and frameworks.

• Experience collaborating across teams and influencing technical decisions without formal authority.

• Experience mentoring engineers and raising the quality bar through code reviews and design reviews.

• Working knowledge of security, privacy, and auditability for AI-enabled developer tooling.

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with engineering leaders across domains.

Total Rewards

We build the exceptional — and we believe the people doing that work should be rewarded accordingly. In addition to a competitive base salary, full-time positions may be is eligible to participate in our annual company performance bonus program.

Payments are discretionary and not guaranteed; actual amounts depend on company results and the terms of the plan in effect, and require active employment at the time of payout. This role is also eligible for equity in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), subject to board approval and the terms of our equity incentive plans, including applicable vesting requirements.

In addition to our compensation programs, we invest in our people with a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the health, wellbeing, and financial future for full-time employees — including health coverage, retirement savings, time off, and family planning programs. Offerings vary by country. Learn more about our global benefit programs.

External candidates can apply for this role through the Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies careers site https://rivianvw.tech/#careers. If you are a current employee, please apply through our internal job board.

Equal Opportunity

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition or any other characteristic protected by law. We are also committed to ensuring compliance with all applicable fair employment practice laws regarding citizenship and immigration status.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at [e-mail].

Candidate Data Privacy

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies” may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) record keeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies affiliates; and (iii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies’ service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.

If you provide a mobile telephone number as part of your application or during the recruitment process, Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may use that number to contact you via SMS text message for recruitment-related purposes, including scheduling, logistics, and status updates. Message and data rates may apply. You may opt out of SMS communications at any time by replying STOP to any text message you receive from us. Consent to receive SMS messages is not a condition of applying for or being considered for employment.

Please see our Candidate Data Privacy Notice (English)and Candidate Data Privacy Notice (Serbian).

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Please note this job posting represents an open, active vacancy. Additionally, we are not currently accepting applications from third party application services.