Staff Software Engineer, Autonomous Vehicle Performance Metrics

Motional • Boston, MA

1d • $172,000 - $229,000

About The Position

Motional is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for its Systems Readiness and Performance team, which connects software development with real-world deployment. The team drives system design, verifies and validates the autonomy stack, and defines, measures, and validates system performance targets. It works with autonomy, infrastructure, and operations stakeholders to support the safety case for commercial deployment of driverless vehicles.

In this role, you will evaluate and improve autonomous vehicle performance by developing metrics and software tools, primarily in Python. You will turn complex on-road and simulated vehicle data into actionable analysis that helps teams develop safe and reliable autonomous technology. The role also involves setting technical direction, influencing cross-functional work, maintaining high data quality, and mentoring engineers.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of software engineering experience.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Expert-level proficiency in Python and a strong understanding of modern software development principles and best practices.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, particularly in complex system performance evaluation and data analysis.
• Proficiency with Git and standard version-control workflows.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts and results to engineers, product managers, and leadership.
• Ability to work independently and effectively as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to data quality, accuracy, and rigorous testing.
• Comfort working in a fast-paced, agile CI/CD environment.
• Willingness to travel for 1–2 weeks each quarter to testing sites, mostly in Las Vegas and also domestically as needed.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree.
• Experience developing software for autonomous vehicles or robotics.
• Experience in perception, prediction, planning, or controls.
• Experience with Python data analysis and visualization tools such as Pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn, and Jupyter notebooks.
• Knowledge of statistical analysis and machine learning techniques relevant to performance evaluation.

Responsibilities

• Define a long-term technical roadmap with leadership and product managers, optimizing engineering traction and prioritizing work that de-risks AV deployment.
• Design and implement pipelines to extract on-road and simulated events and evaluate AV performance, including lane changes, oscillation and braking metrics, and vulnerable road user emergence from occlusion.
• Develop Python frameworks, AI-powered tools, and systems to calculate, aggregate, and visualize performance metrics from large datasets.
• Partner with systems, software, AI, controls, simulation, and validation teams to build alignment and drive improvements in Perception, Prediction, and Planning.
• Maintain high standards for code quality, system reliability, and data integrity; identify codebase risks and lead solutions to improve evaluation accuracy.
• Document metrics and analysis tools, and share engineering best practices.
• Evaluate and integrate technologies and methodologies relevant to autonomous vehicles and software engineering.
• Mentor engineers, lead design and architecture reviews, and share knowledge through internal technical talks.
• Drive quarterly and multi-quarter team goals, deliver key performance metrics, improve evaluation processes, and provide timely, accurate data and insights to AV development teams.

Benefits

• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Health savings accounts
• Life insurance
• Pet insurance
• The role may include a bonus or company equity; eligibility and details depend on the position.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior