Staff Applied Scientist, Autonomy Evaluation

We're Cruise, a self-driving service designed for the cities we love.

We’re building the world’s most advanced self-driving vehicles to safely connect people to the places, things, and experiences they care about. We believe self-driving vehicles will help save lives, reshape cities, give back time in transit, and restore freedom of movement for many.

In our cars, you’re free to be yourself. It’s the same here at Cruise. We’re creating a culture that values the experiences and contributions of all of the unique individuals who collectively make up Cruise, so that every employee can do their best work. 

Cruise is committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment, both in our workplace and in our products. If you are looking to play a part in making a positive impact in the world by advancing the revolutionary work of self-driving cars, come join us. Even if you might not meet every requirement, we strongly encourage you to apply. You might just be the right candidate for us.

As a Staff Applied Scientist, Autonomy Evaluation, you will build the world's most advanced evaluation of AV driving capabilities and stack with the end goal of achieving and maintaining superhuman levels of performance across all criteria by developing high quality metrics and actionable insights throughout the full development lifecycle. You drive impact focused projects that address the everyday challenges that our AV's face on urban roads- ones that do not have standard solutions available. 
 

What you'll be doing:

As a tech lead, you will demonstrate your leadership by:

• Defining success criteria from ambiguous problem statements.
• Driving evaluation strategies and roadmaps, leading the development, monitoring and analysis of  safety, roadcraft and compliance metrics for core autonomous capabilities.
• Ensuring comprehensive validation of AV performance with high fidelity signals.
• Streamlining testing and road monitoring process in collaboration with AV Engineers to build a fast feedback loop to AV model development.
• Mentoring fellow Data Scientists and fostering a positive, collaborative work environment.
• Role-modeling a positive, humble and growth-oriented attitude.

As an individual contributor, you will be responsible for:

• Building high quality data miners and metrics that serves testing, road monitoring, and model training
• Analyzing AV performance data to extract insights and opportunities for optimization. 
• Developing new methodologies, e.g., machine learning based approaches, to scalably improve the quality of metrics
• Test and deploy and your methods in our simulation environment
• Collaborating with AV Software Engineers, Systems Engineers, Test Engineers along with Product Management and other stakeholders to build shareable tools, methods, and dashboards
• Converting insights into actionable recommendations for AV software development and launch readiness decisions, and succinctly communicate these findings to partners and leadership

What you must have:

• A Masters or PhD degree or equivalent experience in Robotics, Transportation, Industrial Engineering, Operation Research or other relevant industry experience
• 5+ years post-academic experience in evaluating large models, data science, machine learning, or a closely-related field.
• Strong software engineering foundation and proficiency in production-environment coding and best practices.
• Proficiency in SQL and Python.
• Experience designing, training, and critically analyzing machine learning models for big data.
• Solid statistical foundations, familiarity with hypothesis testing, statistical power, and common biases in data.
• Experience designing, developing and maintaining automated reporting tools for management and other partners.
• Creative, inventive, and passionate about seeking new solutions to problems and opportunities
• A track record of leading multi-functional initiatives and collaborating with engineering and product teams
• 3+ years of experience mentoring other data scientists

Bonus Points!

• Experience in the autonomous driving industry 
• Experience in C++

The salary range for this position is $183,600 - $270,000. Compensation will vary depending on location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. You may also be offered a bonus, long-term incentives, and benefits. These ranges are subject to change.

Our benefits are here to support the whole you:

• Competitive salary and benefits 
• Medical / dental / vision, Life and AD&D
• Subsidized mental health benefits
• Paid time off and holidays
• Paid parental, medical, family care, and military leave of absence
• 401(k) Cruise matching program 
• Fertility benefits
• Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account
• Flexible Spending Account & Health Saving Account
• Perks Wallet program for benefits/perks
• Pre-tax Commuter benefit plan for local employees
• CruiseFlex, our location-flexible work policy. (Learn more about CruiseFlex).

• Through our partnerships with General Motors and Honda, we are the only self-driving company with fully integrated manufacturing at scale.

• GM, Honda, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart have invested billions in Cruise. Their backing for our technology demonstrates their confidence in our progress, team, and vision and makes us one of the leading autonomous vehicle organizations in the industry. Our deep resources greatly accelerate our operating speed.

Cruise LLC is an equal opportunity employer. We strive to create a supportive and inclusive workplace where contributions are valued and celebrated, and our employees thrive by being themselves and are inspired to do the best work of their lives. We seek applicants of all backgrounds and identities, across race, color, caste, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, age, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, or disability. Applicants will not be discriminated against based on these or other protected categories or social identities. Cruise will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, in accordance with applicable laws.

Cruise is committed to the full inclusion of all applicants. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process please let our recruiting team know or email HR@getcruise.com.

We proactively work to design hiring processes that promote equity and inclusion while mitigating bias. To help us track the effectiveness and inclusivity of our recruiting efforts, please consider answering the following demographic questions. Answering these questions is entirely voluntary. Your answers to these questions will not be shared with the hiring decision makers and will not impact the hiring decision in any way. Instead, Cruise will use this information not only to comply with any government reporting obligations but also to track our progress toward meeting our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging objectives.

Candidates applying for roles that operate and remotely operate the AV: Licensed to drive a motor vehicle in the U.S. for the three years immediately preceding your application, currently holding an active in-state regular driver’s license or equivalent, and no more than one point on driving record. A successful completion of a background check, drug screen and DMV Motor Vehicle Record check is also required.

Note to Recruitment Agencies: Cruise does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Furthermore, Cruise does not pay placement fees for candidates submitted by any agency other than its approved partners.