Principal Engineer, Digital Twin and Simulation Platform

Caterpillar Inc.•Irving, TX

1d•$159,120 - $258,570•Onsite

About The Position

Caterpillar is hiring a Principal Engineer to provide hands-on technical leadership for its next-generation digital twin and simulation software stack. The role focuses on construction autonomy and Physical AI, connecting machine models, environments, physics, operational data, mapping, rendering, and robotics software through reusable, interoperable platform services. The engineer will lead architecture, critical implementation, engineering standards, cross-team alignment, and mentoring, translating ambiguous business and engineering problems into scalable architectures and production software while balancing research and prototyping with secure, maintainable delivery. The position works across simulation, robotics, autonomy, controls, AI, data, cloud, product, and customer-facing organizations. It is based onsite five days a week at Caterpillar’s Irving, Texas office. Domestic relocation assistance and visa sponsorship are available, subject to eligibility.

Requirements

Seven or more years of hands-on backend software development and five or more years of frontend or visualization development.
Advanced software engineering experience using Python and one or more of C++, C#, Java, Go, or Node.js.
Strong API and backend architecture experience, including REST, GraphQL, event-driven interfaces, SQL, NoSQL, object storage, distributed systems, automated testing, CI/CD, source control, and observability.
Experience with cloud platforms and cloud-native architectures, including Docker and Kubernetes.
Expertise with NVIDIA Omniverse, Omniverse Kit SDK, OpenUSD, RTX rendering, and SimReady asset concepts.
Experience with NVIDIA Isaac Sim and integration of robotics simulation into digital twin environments.
Experience with NVIDIA Newton or comparable GPU-accelerated physics engines for terrain, contact, rigid-body, and machine interaction modeling.
Experience with Unreal Engine, Unity, or equivalent real-time 3D platforms.
Experience with GIS and mapping technologies such as Cesium, Mapbox, OpenLayers, terrain meshes, and coordinate reference systems.
Experience with modern web technologies such as TypeScript, React, Next.js, Angular, HTML, and CSS.
Experience deploying GPU simulation and rendering workloads using CoreWeave, Kubernetes, Docker, and NVIDIA Container Toolkit.
Experience defining simulation architecture across multiple products or engineering teams and leading architecture and technical delivery across multiple teams.
Experience connecting simulation systems with machine, robotics, autonomy, or operational data, and with automated map-to-OpenUSD or site-to-simulation pipelines.
Strong communication, mentoring, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, or Cursor.

Nice To Haves

Preferred technology stack: OpenUSD, NVIDIA Omniverse, Omniverse Kit, Isaac Sim, Newton, RTX, CUDA, Cesium, Python, C++, TypeScript, Docker, Kubernetes, and CoreWeave.

Responsibilities

Define the end-to-end digital twin and simulation reference architecture.
Build reusable software for machines, terrain, sites, sensors, behaviors, scenarios, and visualization.
Lead OpenUSD-based asset and scene pipelines, including layers, references, payloads, variants, schemas, materials, and metadata.
Develop NVIDIA Omniverse Kit extensions and integrate CAD, GIS, terrain, machine, sensor, and operational data.
Establish APIs and data contracts across simulation, robotics, AI, controls, and enterprise platforms.
Lead rendering, scene management, mapping, and physically based visualization capabilities.
Define standards for fidelity, determinism, performance, interoperability, model versioning, and reuse.
Enable containerized simulation workloads across local, on-premises, and CoreWeave GPU environments.
Own a major technical capability across multiple teams and programs, leading architecture reviews, technical investigations, and design decisions.
Translate ambiguous business and engineering problems into scalable architectures and production software, balancing research and prototyping with secure, maintainable delivery.
Mentor senior and developing engineers, support technical hiring and onboarding, and partner across simulation, robotics, autonomy, controls, AI, data, cloud, product, and customer-facing organizations.