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Director Autonomous Driving Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Nvidia

OR

$104K - $143K/yr

We are now looking for an extraordinary Senior Perception Engineer to develop and productize NVIDIA's autonomous driving solutions. As a member of our perception team, you will be driving E2E ...

AeroVect

Staff Autonomy Engineer

San Francisco, CA

Company Description At AeroVect, we provide autonomous driving solutions to some of the busiest ... directing schedule, removing obstacles, designing/coaching the team to hit aggressive milestones ...

AeroVect

Staff Autonomy Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

Company Description At AeroVect, we provide autonomous driving solutions to some of the busiest ... directing schedule, removing obstacles, designing/coaching the team to hit aggressive milestones ...

Nvidia

OR · On-site

At NVIDIA, we are seeking exceptional engineers to join our autonomous driving teamto design, implement, and deploy cutting-edge end-to-end autonomous driving systems, running on NVIDIA chips in mass ...

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How much do director autonomous driving engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Jun 7, 2026, the average yearly pay for director autonomous driving engineer in the United States is $194,709.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $141,500.00 and $253,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Director Autonomous Driving Engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Director Autonomous Driving Engineer, you need deep expertise in robotics, computer vision, sensor fusion, and machine learning, typically supported by an advanced degree in engineering or computer science and significant industry experience. Familiarity with tools such as ROS, simulation platforms, automotive-grade software systems, and relevant safety certifications (like ISO 26262) is crucial. Strong leadership, strategic thinking, and effective communication are essential soft skills for guiding multidisciplinary teams and collaborating with stakeholders. These abilities are vital for driving innovation, ensuring technical excellence, and delivering safe, reliable autonomous driving solutions.

What is the difference between Director Autonomous Driving Engineer vs Senior Autonomous Driving Engineer?

AspectDirector Autonomous Driving EngineerSenior Autonomous Driving Engineer
ResponsibilitiesOversees autonomous driving projects, manages teams, sets strategic goalsDesigns and develops autonomous driving systems, implements algorithms
Required CredentialsAdvanced degree (Master's/PhD), extensive experience, leadership skillsRelevant engineering degree, several years of experience in autonomous systems
Work EnvironmentLeadership roles in R&D teams, cross-department collaborationHands-on engineering in labs or development teams
Industry UsageCommon in tech and automotive companies for strategic rolesCommon in engineering teams focused on system development

The main difference is that the Director Autonomous Driving Engineer focuses on leadership, strategy, and project oversight, while the Senior Autonomous Driving Engineer is primarily involved in technical development and implementation. Both roles require relevant technical credentials, but the director position emphasizes management and strategic planning within autonomous driving projects.

How does a Director of Autonomous Driving Engineering typically collaborate with cross-functional teams within an organization?

As a Director of Autonomous Driving Engineering, you'll regularly collaborate with cross-functional teams such as hardware engineers, data scientists, product managers, safety and compliance experts, and user experience designers. Your role involves aligning the technical roadmap with business goals, ensuring seamless integration of software and hardware, and facilitating effective communication between departments. This collaborative approach is crucial for addressing complex challenges, maintaining project momentum, and ensuring the autonomous driving system meets safety, regulatory, and performance standards.

What does a Director Autonomous Driving Engineer do?

A Director Autonomous Driving Engineer leads and manages teams responsible for developing self-driving vehicle technologies. This role oversees the technical strategy, project execution, and integration of hardware and software for autonomous systems. Directors in this position collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, ensure safety and regulatory compliance, and drive innovation to advance autonomous vehicle capabilities. They also mentor engineers, set technical standards, and work with stakeholders to align product goals with business objectives.
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Director Autonomous Driving Engineer jobs near you
Principal Deep Learning Engineer - Perception, Autonomous Driving

Principal Deep Learning Engineer - Perception, Autonomous Driving

Nvidia

Santa Clara, CA

Full-time

Posted 20 days ago

Job description

NVIDIA is pioneering the future of autonomous driving! Our comprehensive autonomous driving platform, NVIDIA DRIVE, is used by hundreds of automakers, truck makers, tier-1 suppliers, and robotaxi companies globally. We are looking for a world-class Principal Deep Learning Engineer to join our Autonomous Driving Perception team.

In this highly impactful role, you will lead the development of state-of-the-art perception systems that enable our vehicles to understand their environment with superhuman accuracy! You will drive the architectural vision for our core deep learning models, focusing on detection, segmentation, and tracking, and guide these technologies from research to production.

What you'll be doing:

  • Architect and Innovate: Develop, train, and deploy modern, state-of-the-art deep learning architectures (e.g., Transformers, variants of Transformers, Few Shots Learning) for 3D obstacle detection, dense occupancy prediction, semantic segmentation, and multi-object tracking.

  • Ship High-Quality Products: Drive the end-to-end productization of perception models. You will have ownership of shipping robust, production-grade deep learning features to our global automotive customers, ensuring they meet the highest standards of safety and quality.

  • Lead Corner-Case Driven Development: Champion a rigorous, safety-critical development process. You will proactively identify, mine, and solve long-tail corner cases in sophisticated urban and highway driving environments.

  • Define Data Strategy: Act as the technical authority on data quality. You will define data labeling guidelines, establish quality control metrics, and work closely with data operations to ensure high-fidelity ground truth for sophisticated perception tasks.

  • Technical Leadership: Serve as a technical pillar for the perception organization. You will mentor senior engineers, influence cross-functional teams (planning, mapping, and infrastructure), and set the technical roadmap for next-generation perception architectures.

What we need to see:

  • Ph.D. or MS in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

  • 12+ years of applied research and software engineering experience, with a heavy emphasis on deep learning for computer vision.

  • Proven Track Record: Demonstrated success as a lead technical contributor in shipping commercial, high-quality deep learning software products to end customers.

  • Domain Expertise: Deep foundational knowledge and hands-on experience in building architectures for object detection, occupancy networks, semantic/instance segmentation, and temporal tracking.

  • Data Intuition: A strong intuition for data-centric AI. Proven experience taking care of massive datasets, defining labeling taxonomies, and building automated pipelines to surface hard examples and edge cases.

  • Engineering Excellence: Strong programming skills in Python and C++, with experience using deep learning frameworks like PyTorch.

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

  • Prior experience specifically within the autonomous driving or robotics industry shipping models deployed on edge compute.

  • Experience with model optimization, quantization, and deployment on embedded platforms (especially using NVIDIA TensorRT).

  • First-author publications at top-tier computer vision or machine learning conferences (e.g., CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS).

  • Experience designing multi-modal perception systems (camera, lidar, radar fusion).

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 272,000 USD - 431,250 USD.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until March 22, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse 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.
Nvidia logo

About Nvidia

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

NVIDIA has been transforming computer graphics, PC gaming, and accelerated computing for more than 25 years. It's a unique legacy of innovation that's fueled by great technology--and amazing people. Today, we're tapping into the unlimited potential of AI to define the next era of computing. An era in which our GPU acts as the brains of computers, robots, and self-driving cars that can understand the world. Doing what's never been done before takes vision, innovation, and the world's best talent.

Industry

Computer and electronic product manufacturing

Company size

10,000+ Employees

Headquarters location

Santa Clara, CA, US

Year founded

1993

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