Head of Software Operations

Nuro•Mountain View, CA

About The Position

Data is the foundation of autonomous driving. Every improvement in Nuro’s autonomy stack depends on identifying the right real-world examples, transforming them into high-quality training and evaluation datasets, and rigorously validating that each software release is ready for the road. As Head of Software Operations, you will lead the organization responsible for this critical development loop—from producing the data that trains and evaluates Nuro’s AI models to identifying autonomy regressions and building confidence in every software release. Your work will directly influence how quickly our models learn, how effectively engineering teams resolve performance gaps, and how safely new capabilities reach the vehicle. Sitting at the center of Nuro’s autonomy organization, your team will work closely with machine learning, autonomy, simulation, onboard systems, data science, and product teams. You will also help Nuro take advantage of emerging technologies, including multimodal foundation models, LLMs to improve how training data is created and how system performance is evaluated. We are looking for a proactive, technically fluent operational leader who can identify gaps across the autonomy development lifecycle and build the teams, systems, and partnerships needed to close them. You will define the long-term vision for software operations while developing an organization equally capable of navigating ambiguity, executing disciplined processes, and staying aligned with Nuro’s broader technical roadmap.

Requirements

10+ years of operational leadership experience, with 5+ years in AV, robotics, or complex ML operations including budget or P&L ownership
Proven track record managing large-scale onshore and offshore vendor operations (labeling/annotation), both operationally and commercially
Strong working knowledge of AI systems and cross-functional collaboration with engineering and product teams
Strong analytical skills to identify root causes of KPI gaps and drive execution to resolve them
Demonstrated ability to build and scale operational organizations in fast-paced, ambiguous environments

Nice To Haves

Background in autonomous vehicles or physical AI
Experience with LLM or GenAI labeling pipelines

Responsibilities

Direct the strategy and execution of the Software Operation organization, including providing high quality data for AI models, conducting triage and root cause analysis to support autonomy and system teams.
Own data labeling vendors as the extended software operation organization.
Be responsible for quality, throughput SLAs, budgets, pricing negotiation.
Manage embedded domain specialists doing deep-dive work on autonomy stack modules, and partner closely with engineering and data science to build out scenario and evaluation datasets.
Set the operational KPIs, throughput metrics, and quality bar across all pipelines, and act as the main connective tissue between Software Operations, Engineering, and Product.
Run a multi-pillar organization efficiently, evolving the organization structure to align with the business needs.