Senior Autonomy Engineer

Caterpillar Inc.•Mossville, IL

1d•$146,890 - $183,140•Onsite

About The Position

Caterpillar Inc. is hiring a Senior Autonomy Engineer at its facility in Chillicothe, Illinois. The role develops, validates, and integrates remote-control and autonomy features for complex off-road machines, prioritizing machine safety, operator productivity, customer value, reliability, and integration with onboard and remote-operation workflows. The engineer delivers quality systems on schedule to meet program requirements and NPI milestones, while tracking delivery and quality metrics including features delivered, issues per release, customer issues, and timeline variance. The position focuses on developing and improving remote-control and autonomy software, especially vision pipelines, latency, stability, and quality. The engineer owns onboard system design and integration for remote-control vision and control subsystems and autonomy subsystems such as Planning, Perception, and Positioning. Work includes computer vision and real-time software for video capture, encoding and decoding, transport, synchronization, overlays, and teleoperation UI/UX hooks. The engineer collaborates with system architects and strategists to translate requirements into development plans, assess and deploy vision and autonomy algorithms, and implement validated algorithms in robust, maintainable, production-quality software that can be reused across machine models. The role also involves working with hardware teams on autonomy and vision components, extending existing codebases while preserving backward compatibility, and developing new applications. Quality work includes unit testing and integration testing in SIL, HIL, simulation, substitute-machine, and actual-machine environments, with vision acceptance criteria such as frame rate, bitrate, end-to-end latency, jitter, and recoverability. The engineer analyzes logs, telemetry, and other data to troubleshoot customer and test-site issues and improve system performance across machine models. Domestic and international travel of 5–10% is required. The position is onsite five days a week; telecommuting is not allowed.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
At least 5 years of experience in Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, or a related occupation.
Employment experience writing C and C++ software.
Employment experience developing software requirements.
Employment experience with machine validation.
Employment experience with remote-control and autonomy systems and software for off-road machines.
Employment experience with RTOS- and Linux-based embedded software development.
Employment experience with vision system design and development.
Employment experience with camera firmware configuration and troubleshooting.

Responsibilities

Develop high-quality remote-control and autonomy features for complex systems, emphasizing machine safety, operator productivity, and customer value.
Design, develop, validate, and integrate Remote Control Vision Systems across multiple machine models.
Deliver systems on time to meet agreed features and NPI milestones, and track delivery and quality metrics.
Develop, improve, and troubleshoot remote-control and autonomy software, focusing on vision pipelines, latency, stability, and quality.
Own onboard system design and integration for remote-control vision and control subsystems and autonomy Planning, Perception, and Positioning subsystems.
Develop remote-control vision software for video capture, encoding and decoding, transport, synchronization, overlays, and teleoperation UI/UX hooks.
Work with Autonomy and Vision System Architects and Strategists to translate requirements into actionable development and evaluate and deploy algorithms.
Implement validated algorithms in robust, maintainable production software with cross-model portability.
Collaborate with Component Hardware teams on autonomy and vision hardware selection, compatibility, and performance across machine platforms.
Use internal automation and vision frameworks and libraries and promote consistency and reuse.
Maintain and extend existing codebases while delivering updates and preserving backward compatibility and stable integrations.
Develop new applications and modify existing codebases.
Apply a quality discipline through unit testing and integration with SIL, HIL, simulation, substitute-machine, and actual-machine testing.
Establish vision performance acceptance criteria, including FPS, bitrate, end-to-end latency, jitter, and recoverability.
Analyze logs, telemetry, and analytics to troubleshoot customer and test-site issues and improve vision and autonomy performance.
Travel domestically and internationally 5–10% of the time.