Principal Technical Lead Manager - AI Data Applications

Mission Summary:

We are seeking an experienced and visionary Principal Technical Lead Manager to build and lead our new AI Data Application team. This pivotal role will drive the strategy, development, and execution of initiatives aimed at significantly accelerating our ML dataset generation and data search applications. The ultimate goal is to drastically reduce the development cycle for new pipelines, ML models and get us operationally prepared for a driverless future!

You will be a hands-on leader, blending deep technical expertise in data systems and infrastructure with strong leadership and people management skills. You will recruit, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvements.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Team Leadership & Management:
• Build, lead, and manage a high-performing team of full stack web engineers.
• Define team goals, priorities, and roadmap in alignment with company objectives.
• Provide technical guidance, mentorship, and career development opportunities to team members.
• Technical Strategy & Execution:
• Define the technical vision and strategy for building services and web platforms for storing and searching metadata and forming datasets.
• Define AI adoption strategy for frontend codebase and UX projects to speed up development and time to market.
• Identify and evaluate cutting-edge technologies and methodologies for querying through datasets stored in various types of databases (think images in vector store, metadata in Postgres, etc) and APIs owned by several teams across the company.
• Cross-functional Collaboration:
• Collaborate closely with data mining, ML researchers, and other data platform teams to understand their needs and integrate solutions seamlessly.
• Communicate complex technical concepts and strategies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

What We're Looking For:

• Experience:
• BS or MS in Computer Science or related field
• 8+ years of professional experience in building web applications
• 3+ years of experience in a technical lead or management role
• Extensive experience with building web applications for search and data curation needs.
• Extensive experience with API and query federation technologies such as GraphQL or AWS Athena.
• Technical Skills:
• Strong programming skills in Typescript and Python.
• Strong knowledge of modern frontend technologies such React.
• Strong knowledge of building REST and gRPC based services, ideally in Python.
• Prior experience with building web applications for engineering or machine learning needs

Bonus Points (not required):

• Prior experience in autonomous vehicles (AV) is a plus.
• Prior experience with Bazel based build systems.
• Prior experience with developing frontend workflows using LLMs.

We encourage a hybrid schedule with in-office time at one of our locations in Boston, Pittsburgh, or Las Vegas to support collaboration, or this role can be fully remote.

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: $240,000 USD - $330,000 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.