Full-Time
Senior / Staff ML Optimization Engineer
Confirmed live in the last 24 hours
Waabi
201-500 employees
Develops self-driving technology for trucking
No salary listed
Senior
Toronto, ON, Canada + 2 more
More locations: San Francisco, CA, USA | Dallas, TX, USA
Hybrid work model; candidates may need to work in-office a few days a week.
- MS/PhD or Bachelors degree with a minimum of 6 years of industry experience in Computer Science, Robotics and/or similar technical field(s) of study.
- Solid coding proficiency in a variety of coding languages including Python, C++ or Rust.
- Experience in deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Experience across different stages of the development pipeline: data processing, distributed training and model deployment.
- Skilled in profiling CPU and GPU code using tools such as PyTorch Profiler and NVIDIA Nsight.
- Open-minded and collaborative team player with willingness to help others.
- Passionate about self-driving technologies, solving hard problems, and creating innovative solutions.
- Collaborate closely with autonomy and algorithm engineers to scale safe self-driving systems using an AI-first approach.
- Build standardized distributed training frameworks for research and production, drive our training towards new levels of stability and efficiency.
- Comprehensively profile model runtime and memory to pinpoint performance bottlenecks.
- Identify and evaluate emerging technologies that can be adopted into Waabi’s training and inference frameworks, including but not limited to efficient CUDA kernels for training, quantization, model exporting and compilation for inference, etc.
- Experience in model compilation and exporting, interaction with lower level concepts like TensorRT.
- Experience in identifying when custom CUDA kernels are needed, and implementing them.
- Experience in Bazel build systems, and integrating third party packages into dev environments.
Waabi focuses on developing self-driving technology specifically for the trucking industry. Their main product, the Waabi Driver, is designed to learn from experiences and adapt to various driving conditions and hardware setups. This technology aims for large-scale use and is intended for integration into vehicles by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Waabi stands out from competitors by utilizing an advanced simulation platform called Waabi World, which allows them to test and refine their self-driving systems in a virtual environment, minimizing the need for extensive real-world testing. This not only cuts costs but also enhances safety and adaptability. The goal of Waabi is to transform the trucking sector by providing technology that improves safety and reduces operational costs.
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
Series B
Total Funding
$273.3M
Headquarters
Toronto, Canada
Founded
2021
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Waabi's €270M funding round shows strong investor confidence in autonomous solutions.
- Partnership with Volvo enhances Waabi's market reach and technology development.
- Generative AI in Waabi's solutions boosts adaptability and efficiency in autonomous trucking.
What critics are saying
- Increased competition from Plus and Tier IV in Japan may challenge Waabi's market share.
- Reliance on Nvidia's DRIVE OS could pose risks if supply chain issues arise.
- Partnership with Volvo may limit Waabi's flexibility to collaborate with other OEMs.
What makes Waabi unique
- Waabi uses advanced simulation technology, Waabi World, to reduce real-world testing miles.
- The Waabi Driver adapts to new scenarios and geographies, enhancing flexibility.
- Waabi's vertical integration with OEMs streamlines production and deployment processes.
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↑ 1%Plus and Tier IV Partner to Advance Autonomy 2.0 in Japan(Photo: Plus/Tier IV). Plus, an AI-based autonomous trucking software provider, and Tier IV, the world’s first open-source software for autonomous driving, announced a strategic partnership to develop autonomous driving solutions in Japan. The solution is slated to start with Level 4 autonomous trucks on Japan’s expressways and includes support from a Japanese government-led initiative to expedite the development of autonomous driving technologies, aimed at addressing the country’s critical driver shortage.A recent study by the Nomura Research Institute said there was a 36% shortfall in Japanese truck drivers in 2023. This led the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to develop a project to create autonomous trucks based on vehicles from Japanese vehicle manufacturers.As part of the partnership, a new customized solution will integrate Plus’ end-to-end virtual driver AI model with Tier IV’s Autoware-based platform to meet the autonomous driving requirements of the Japanese market. This is part of Plus’ existing partnerships and expansion in the United States and Europe.Tier IV CEO Shinpei Kato said in a news release: “We’ve always believed that co-creation with our partners is the fastest way to bring the best autonomous driving systems to the world. Plus is a global autonomous driving software company that’s already powering the Level 4 autonomous trucks of leading truck makers in the United States and Europe, like TRATON GROUP’s Scania, MAN and International, Iveco Group, as well as Hyundai
Founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun calls on all AV developers to demonstrate their simulators are true to life
Raquel Urtasun, founder of Waabi, an AI-driven autonomous trucking startup, has raised nearly €270 million, with backing from Uber and Nvidia. Waabi, based in Toronto, focuses on AI simulation for safe autonomous driving. The company secured €79.5 million in Series A funding and €190 million in a subsequent round, attracting investors like Khosla Ventures, Ingka Investments, and Volvo Group. Urtasun emphasizes transforming the world over selling the company.
Toronto-based autonomous truck technology maker Waabi announced a strategic partnership on Tuesday with Volvo Autonomous Solutions to jointly develop and deploy autonomous trucks. The partnership is twofold, combining Waabi’s innovations in generative AI with Volvo’s autonomous truck, the Volvo VNL Autonomous.The vertical integration comes in the form of integrating Waabi’s virtual driver system, the Waabi Driver, into the Volvo autonomous truck, which has redundant systems for safe autonomous operations. FreightWaves spoke with Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi, about the partnership. The first thing to note is this is not a retrofit, but a vertical integration: These trucks will come off the factory line fully equipped and ready.“We don’t believe that retrofit is an option for that redundant platform; we believe that our technology, and any AV player for that matter, should be vertically integrated into a redundant platform that is purposefully built for self-driving,” said Urtasun. While Volvo handles the tractor, Waabi has been cooking up its Waabi Driver, part of the next generation of autonomous vehicle progression called AV 2.0. AV 2.0 and autonomous trucking’s Kitty Hawk momentThe best way to understand AV 2.0 and what that means for autonomous trucking is to first understand what AV 1.0 did.“If you look at the industry, there was a generation of technology, what we call AV 1.0, which is a more traditional approach that is some engineered systems where there is AI on them but AI plays a very secondary role,” said Urtasun.She adds that one way to imagine AV 1.0 is smaller AI models all over the place, but there’s a system managed by humans requiring large teams to develop, necessitating many miles to see the next set of edge cases that the system can’t handle. More miles, that is followed by building a bigger dataset, but it’s very capital-intensive and time-consuming, resembling a tedious iteration. The past two years brought about the next evolution, AV 2.0: “this idea of you can have a single AI system that can do all the tests necessary for driving,” adds Urtasun. A parallel that she notes is to imagine having a large language model (LLM) that can engineer a system, versus having to manually program it in the past.With great power comes great computing responsibility. One reason Nvidia has recently been in trucking news is that its computer hardware is powering the AV 2.0 renaissance
CEO says deal gives Waabi next puzzle piece it needs for autonomous trucking at scale