Principal Engineer, Data & ML Infrastructure

Job Description

Job Description

Mission Summary:

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Principal Engineer, Technical Lead to lead our large-scale autonomous vehicle evaluation framework. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in cloud infrastructure, distributed systems and technical leadership, with experience in developing and deploying advanced data analysis and large scale orchestration frameworks.

At Motional, large scale orchestration for data analysis plays a critical role in delivering our ML-centered autonomous driving vehicle. Our robo-taxi ML Models and software are developed by hundreds of developers and deployed multiple times a day – The Ground Truth Regression team provides the large scale perception analysis framework for validating all changes to perception which can impact the autonomous vehicle behavior. 

The GTRegression team validates the end impact of ML and software changes to the autonomous vehicle while those changes are in development, providing the tools for Root Cause Analysis, and safety consideration. We monitor for model errors, anomalies, rare objects & long-tail driving scenarios across thousands of driving hours. The team develops the full stack – AWS Kubernetes orchestration framework, ReSimulation, model metrics, regression reports, and deep dive analysis UI's. The team works together with all other perception and ML teams to develop the metrics and analyze results.

What You'll Do: 

• Lead a team of engineers with a diverse skill set to deliver critical software and infrastructure supporting the development of the autonomous vehicle ML models and software.
• Drive innovation by researching and developing new large scale data warehousing and analysis.
• Own large-scale data analysis workflows that surface unexpected impacts of planned and unplanned changes to the ML models and software.
• Work with annotation specialists to build high-quality evaluation datasets.
• Provide statistical depth on model performance & generalization through rigorous error and change analysis.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to the team, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Manage project timelines, resources, and deliverables to ensure successful project execution.

What We're Looking For:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Proven record leading a small diverse dedicated team supporting a large user base.
• Experience in machine learning, data mining, and statistical analysis.
• Proficiency in Go (Golang), Python, or C++ for building high-performance, concurrent microservices and platform tooling
• Deep hands-on experience building production infrastructure on public clouds (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and managing containerized workloads at scale using Kubernetes (K8s).
• Experience with large-scale data processing and distributed computing technologies.

Bonus Points:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related field.
• Knowledge of or hands-on experience with OLAP databases (e.g., ClickHouse) for data analysis.
• Experience with machine learning in the autonomous driving domain.
• Familiarity with error analysis and statistical techniques for monitoring model performance and generalization in production.
• Publications or contributions to the AI/ML community.

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process. 

Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional's benefits program. Motional's benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.

Salary Range

$200,000—$275,000 USD

Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We're driven by something more.

Our journey is always people first.

We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.

Higher purpose, greater impact.

We're creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it's not only good for our business, it's the right thing to do.

Scale up, not starting up.

Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We're driven to scale; we're moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.

Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.