Director, Systems Engineering

Nuro•Mountain View, CA

About The Position

Nuro is looking for a Director of Systems Engineering to lead a high-caliber team responsible for defining, analyzing, validating, and improving the performance of the Nuro Driver across complex hardware and software systems. Systems Engineering sits at the center of how we turn ambitious autonomy goals into clear technical requirements, measurable performance targets, and verified system behavior on public roads. This team partners deeply across behavior, sensing, perception, prediction, planning, hardware, safety, test, and product to ensure the NuroDriver™ performs reliably in the real world and can scale across vehicle platforms and commercial use cases. In this role, you will lead teams responsible for translating critical use cases into system requirements, conducting rigorous analyses and trade studies, informing architectural decisions, and ensuring our verification strategy establishes that the system meets the bar required for safe, scalable deployment. You will be expected to operate with strong technical depth, excellent judgment, and the leadership ability to build, coach, and raise the bar for a high-performing engineering team.

Requirements

7+ years of systems engineering experience, with demonstrated delivery of complex systems against internal or external milestones.
5+ years of direct management experience, with a track record of building and leading high-performing engineering teams.
Experience managing managers and scaling teams
Strong systems engineering fundamentals, including requirements definition, system decomposition, verification and validation methods, and performance analysis.
Experience working on complex hardware and software systems, ideally in autonomy, robotics, automotive, aerospace, defense, or another safety-critical domain.
Strong technical judgment and the ability to make pragmatic architectural and prioritization tradeoffs.
Experience partnering across software, hardware, test, safety, and product teams to drive system-level outcomes.
A bachelor’s degree in a relevant engineering or technical field such as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Controls, Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Deep technical knowledge of modern perception systems and the ML techniques that power them.
Experience with multiple sensing modalities such as cameras, radar, lidar, ultrasonics, or other autonomy-relevant sensors.
Experience with autonomous driving, robotics, advanced driver assistance systems, or safety-critical AI systems.
Software development experience in C++, Python, or related technical environments.
Experience building verification strategies for systems deployed in real-world, safety-critical environments.
Experience influencing technical roadmaps and architectural decisions across large, cross-functional engineering organizations

Responsibilities

Lead and grow a team of Systems Engineers responsible for translating NuroDriver product and deployment goals into clear system requirements, measurable performance targets, validation strategies, and architecture tradeoffs across autonomy software, sensing hardware, safety, and real-world operations.
Decompose critical autonomy use cases into actionable requirements for sensors, sensing systems, perception systems, and broader autonomy system behavior.
Establish clear performance standards for complex hardware and software systems operating in real-world autonomous driving environments.
Conduct technical analyses to determine required performance levels across sensing, perception, and other autonomy-critical capabilities.
Lead trade studies that inform hardware architecture, software architecture, sensor configuration, system design, and deployment readiness.
Partner closely with Systems Test Engineering and other verification teams to ensure test strategies, results, and coverage are sufficient to validate critical requirements.
Collaborate deeply with engineering leaders across autonomy, AI, hardware, safety, product, and operations to guide prioritization and refine technical deliverables.
Build scalable systems engineering practices that improve clarity, execution speed, technical rigor, and cross-functional decision-making.
Mentor and develop individual contributors and managers, raising the bar for technical judgment, ownership, and execution quality.
Recruit, hire, and onboard exceptional systems engineering talent.
Create a team environment where high standards, strong collaboration, technical excellence, and direct feedback allow people to do their best work.
Bring innovative and pragmatic approaches to deep technical challenges across the hardware, software, and AI systems required for autonomous driving