Senior Data Scientist, Systems Performance

Role Description

The Systems Readiness and Performance team is the crucial bridge between software development and real-world deployment. We are responsible for driving system design, for verifying and validating the autonomy stack, and for defining, measuring, and validating system performance targets. We work closely with stakeholders in autonomy, infrastructure, and operations to build the definitive safety case for the commercial launch of our fully driverless IONIQ 5 robotaxis in Las Vegas.

We are seeking a Senior Data Scientist to lead initiatives that improve evaluation and testing methodologies, measure the quality and trustworthiness of our evaluation portfolio, and partner with engineering teams to monitor and strengthen the health of the evaluation ecosystem.

In this role, you will:

• Lead development of evaluation methodologies and metrics that assess the quality and business relevance of solutions spanning on-road and off-board data.
• Influence the evaluation signals software engineers rely on to validate that changes to the autonomy stack deliver intended improvements.
• Conduct deep-dive analyses to understand bottlenecks in current methodologies.
• Prototype improvements in metrics, sampling strategy, and statistical inference.
• Develop deep expertise in how evaluation signals inform launch and release decisions.
• Weigh trade-offs across the evaluation portfolio and provide actionable insights for designing launch criteria.

If you are a rigorous, collaborative data scientist with a passion for improving how autonomous systems are measured and validated at scale, we encourage you to apply.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of industry experience solving complex problems with large datasets.
• Bachelor's or higher degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Data Science, Robotics, Physics, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field. Master's or PhD preferred.
• Strong problem-solving skills: ability to break down complex performance and evaluation challenges.
• Strong Python and SQL skills, with demonstrated experience using data analysis libraries.
• Experience applying advanced statistical and ML methods to drive insights from large and complex data sets.
• Demonstrated experience with statistical analysis, hypothesis testing, causal analysis, and data analysis.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently with minimal guidance.
• Proven communication and interpersonal skills.
• Eager to learn new statistical and ML techniques and demonstrated willingness to teach.

Requirements

• Lead the development of evaluation frameworks for the autonomous system.
• Collaborate closely with Functional Safety and Systems Engineering teams.
• Ensure evaluation metrics are reliable enough to inform safety cases and launch readiness decisions.
• Monitor the reliability of evaluation metrics and incoming performance data over time.
• Drive our approach to performance analysis using data-backed statistical methods.
• Develop new statistical analysis methods to analyze AV performance data.
• Partner with triage operators and simulation engineers.
• Use fleet and evaluation data to identify edge cases in an automated manner.
• Build confidence in the evaluation framework through data-driven insights.
• Establish correlation between on-road and simulation data.
• Make sense of large datasets to drive insights and communicate results effectively.
• Establish a self-service model for developers.
• Develop new metrics, interpret trends, and investigate anomalies.
• Collaborate with developers to drive action based on results.
• Serve as an advisor and influence collaborators across multiple teams.
• Mentor and collaborate with fellow engineers.
• Introduce the use of ML methods for performance evaluation.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401k with a company match.
• Health saving accounts.
• Life insurance.
• Pet insurance.
• Additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity.

Salary Range

$149,000 — $198,000 USD