Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Large Driving Model (Behavioral Alignment)

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract. 

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations. 

We are seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to drive behavioral optimization and alignment for our Large Driving Model (LDM). In this role, you will play a foundational part in the LDM Behavioral Alignment team, taking a holistic, vertical view of complex autonomous driving behaviors. Your objective is to analyze, define, and systematically improve vehicle actions by working fluidly across data, training, and model stacks.

Rather than focusing on an isolated layer, you will target the root causes of insufficient driving performance and implement end-to-end solutions—ranging from advanced dataset curation to reinforcement learning (RL)—to directly deliver safer, smoother, and more predictable on-road behavior.

• Diagnose performance bottlenecks for targeted driving behaviors, establishing clear solution roadmaps across data, modeling, training recipe, and reinforcement learning loops.
• Design data mining strategies and metrics to understand targeted model behavior to drive performance insights, measure progress, and inform model fine-tuning and alignment.
• Design, experiment with, and deliver RL algorithms, Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) strategies, and RL reward structures to optimize on-road driving policies.
• Partner across the Autonomy organization with Infrastructure, Perception, and Motion Planning teams to implement high-impact solutions while successfully handing off long-term platform productionization to system owners.
• Provide technical guidance, code reviews, and mentorship for junior and mid-level engineers, fostering high standards for system design.

• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or related fields.
• 5+ years of experience as an ML Engineer, Motion Planning Engineer, or Data Engineer within the LLM/VLM, autonomous driving, robotics, or computer vision space.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch), with a track record of training and fine-tuning large-scale models.
• Experience with Reinforcement Learning (RL), reward design, and policy optimization.
• Strong understanding of traditional planning concepts, edge cases, kinematic feasibility, and vehicle physics.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate highly ambiguous projects, shifting focus dynamically to solve vertical problems and deliver validated on-road impact.
• Strong cross-functional communication skills, with an ability to clearly balance technical trade-offs in a fast-paced environment.

The salary range for this role is $179,000.00 - $223,800.00 for California based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at  View email address on ev.careers .

Candidate Data Privacy

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions. 

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.