Senior Staff Systems Engineer Autonomy

About Rivian

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract. 

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations. 

Role Summary

In this role you will define, mature, and own requirements for the remote assistance platform. This platform is a key part of Rivian’s autonomy stack, providing essential mechanisms to keep our fully autonomous vehicles operational as we build capabilities to handle the “long tail” of driving edge cases.

Responsibilities

• Define, mature, and own requirements for:
  • Vehicle authority and how the vehicle validates remote assistance advisory input before taking action
  • Escalation trigger logic such as for cases where the vehicle needs assistance finding a compliant path
  • Advisory input taxonomy such as what remote operators can provide to the vehicles
  • Input freshness and how to bound validity of an advisory input
  • Situational data sufficiency such as what vehicles provide to the remote operators and its validity
  • Degraded behavior such as how to handle imperfect network connectivity
  • Link integrity and security such as authentication of the information and commands transmitted between the vehicle and the operator
  • Evidentiary logging
• Onboard/offboard interface boundary
• Translating policy/legal-defined authority boundaries regarding law enforcement and first responder interactions into system requirements, coordinated with exterior communication systems
• Author and maintain specifications that serve as the authoritative source of truth for the software infrastructure implementation team
• Define acceptance criteria and verification strategies
• Author test specifications that can be executed at the device, bench, or HIL level to verify and validate pertinent pipelines
• Work with the team to build automated verification capabilities for platform-level requirements
• Serve as the primary technical interface between the systems engineering team and the software infrastructure team for remote assistance topics
• Collaborate with the hardware engineering team on functional and performance KPI definition, resource allocation, and platform topology decisions
• Participate in design reviews for platform software implementations, providing architectural feedback grounded in the specifications you own

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in electrical engineering, computer engineering, software engineering, computer science, or a related field
• 10+ years of experience in embedded systems, automotive software platforms, or autonomous vehicle compute systems
• Experience with telemetry pipeline development
• Experience with Linux based systems
• Familiarity with secure communications design or automotive cybersecurity practices
• Familiarity with functional safety development processes (ISO 26262)
• Experience writing system or software architecture documents, requirements specifications, and interface definitions
• Proficiency in Python (for tooling, automation, data analysis)
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally with implementation teams, translating architecture into actionable specifications
• Experience with requirements management tools (DOORS, Polarion, Jama, or similar)
• Prior work at an OEM, Tier 1, or autonomy technology company

Pay Disclosure

The salary range for this role is $206,500-$258,100 for San Francisco Bay Area based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian’s 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com. 

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. 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.

Rivian 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 [email protected].

Candidate Data Privacy and Technology

Rivian 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 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) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law. 

Rivian 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 affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services. 

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, 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.  

How We Use AI in Our Hiring Process: To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Rivian uses iCIMS Talent Cloud Artificial Intelligence (TCAI) and AI-enabled tools to assist with screening, reviewing, organizing and highlighting profiles and applications that match the key requirements for each role.

AI does not make hiring decisions: Qualified candidate applications are reviewed by a member of our team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use AI to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment. We are committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.

Participation in AI profile matching is entirely voluntary. If you prefer that your profile not be used in this process, you can opt out at any time. Opting out means your profile will be excluded from automated matching and will not be surfaced for additional roles through this system. Your current application remains active and will not be affected in any way.

Interview Integrity & AI Policy 

Our interview process is designed to evaluate your personal technical foundation, real-time problem-solving logic, and structured capabilities. Therefore, the use of assistive generative AI tools to formulate or deliver your solutions during live interview sessions is not permitted. We care most about how you think — how you make sense of unclear requirements, weigh trade-offs, and explain why you chose one approach over another. We value your unique human perspective, your authenticity, and the journey it takes to reach a solution.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.