Sr. Manager, ML Acceleration and Performance

About Rivian 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. Role Summary In this role, you will lead and manage a high‑caliber team within Rivian's Perception organization. You are responsible for the end‑to‑end strategy of how our most advanced neural networks are compressed, optimized, and deployed onto Rivian's custom embedded compute platforms. You will bridge the gap between high‑level ML research and low‑level silicon constraints, ensuring that Rivian's autonomy stack remains "performance‑first" while scaling to meet next‑generation safety requirements. Responsibilities Team Leadership & Mentorship: Build, lead, and develop a world‑class team of acceleration engineers. Manage performance, set technical goals, and foster a culture of high‑performance systems engineering. Acceleration Roadmap: Define the 2‑3 year strategy for model compression (Pruning, Quantization, NAS) and runtime optimization. Determine when to build custom in‑house kernels versus leveraging vendor libraries (TensorRT, SNPE). Hardware-Software Co-Design: Act as the primary stakeholder for the Perception team when collaborating with Hardware Architecture. Influence the design of next‑gen Rivian silicon by characterizing current model bottlenecks and predicting future compute requirements. Cross-Functional Delivery: Partner with Perception, Planning, and Embedded Systems leads to ensure that "Research" models can actually run in real‑time on‑vehicle without compromising safety or thermal envelopes. Infrastructure Strategy: Oversee the development of automated profiling and CI/CD benchmarking pipelines that track latency, memory, and energy consumption across the entire fleet. Qualifications Education: MS or Ph.D. in CS, EE, or related field with 10+ years of industrial experience, including 2+ years in a technical leadership or management capacity. System Mastery: Expert‑level knowledge of the ML stack: from high‑level frameworks (PyTorch) to IR/Compilers (MLIR, TVM, XLA) to silicon (GPU/NPU/DSP). Optimization Specialist: Proven track record of deploying large‑scale models into production via Quantization‑Aware Training (QAT), FP8/INT4 precision, and Neural Architecture Search (NAS). Architectural Fluency: Ability to read hardware spec sheets (data sheets, ISA) and translate "Peak TFLOPS" into realistic "Application Throughput." Low‑Level Coding: Proficient in C++, CUDA, and assembly‑level optimization, with the ability to perform deep‑dive code reviews on custom kernels. 0th and 1st Order Thinking: Deep understanding of the "Elephant in the room" – optimizing non‑differentiable planning objectives and managing the trade‑offs between open‑loop and closed‑loop simulation efficiency. Profiling Expert: Mastery of system‑wide profiling tools (NVIDIA Nsight, PyTorch Profiler, VTune) to identify bottlenecks across the CPU‑GPU‑NPU interconnects. Pay Disclosure The salary range for this role is $265,000 - $331,000 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. The successful candidate may be eligible for annual performance bonus and equity awards. We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full‑time and part‑time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short‑term disability insurance, and long‑term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian's 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full‑time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part‑time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com. 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 click.appcast.io. 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) record‑keeping; (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) 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 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. #J-18808-Ljbffr Rivian