Autonomy Hardware Systems Architect

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

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced candidate to help lead the system architecture for advanced autonomy platforms supporting commercial and personal L4 capabilities. In this position, you will lead efforts within the Autonomy Hardware team to develop a full understanding of product features and attributes, collaborate cross-functionally to translate and decompose them into technical requirements, and ultimately define their respective sub-system and constituent module architectures. In later stages of development, you will leverage these insights to help define system performance criteria and methodology for validation of these systems against their requirements. This is a wide-ranging and impactful role that begins at early stage product development and ends at manufacturing launch. You will work across the autonomy hardware and software teams to develop the autonomy compute architecture, network connectivity, and sensor/actuator systems required to support autonomous driving. This is a hands-on role that will be involved in problems large and small. Attention to detail, open communication, and strong engineering fundamentals are paramount for success.

Responsibilities

• Work cross-functionally with vehicle architecture, hardware design and software application teams to factor functional and performance requirements into their sub-systems, identify the key metrics and trade-offs, and optimize them using data and analysis, to distill clear system and module architecture requirements.
• Model system-level trade-offs concerning distributed compute, functional safety, network and other resources, considering dimensions like power efficiency, end-to-end latencies, compute/memory utilization, and scalability, to help produce optimal systems architectures.
• Guide the development of autonomy compute hardware from Proto to Production phases.
• Collaborate with system performance engineers, hardware design and software teams to create comprehensive validation plans that surface key system-level performance metrics, locate bottlenecks or chokepoints, and identify over-/under-design scenarios relative to system requirements.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or a related field, and a track record of 10+ years of hands-on experience in relevant industries, including automotive, aerospace, or relevant consumer applications.
• Strong familiarity with the landscape of automotive high-compute technologies for autonomy, including DNN pipelines, camera & ISP pipelines, Radar, LiDAR connectivity and signal processing, DSP sub-systems, high-speed interfaces, and related subsystems.
• Experience designing and developing embedded systems to optimize for network performance, compute and network resource utilization, power moding states and efficiency, end-to-end latencies, functional safety, and other system performance characteristics.
• Hands-on experience with a variety of embedded hardware typical in automotive applications, including high-compute SoCs, MCUs, camera or other sensors, de-/serializers, transceivers, networking components, and/or related connectivity and peripheral interfaces
• Strong understanding of embedded computing platforms, and the methods for quantifying performance of their processors, including CPU, GPU, NPU, DSP, ISP, etc, as well as memory systems, networking and peripheral interfaces.
• Conversant with on- and off-board high-speed automotive interfaces and networks, such as PCIe, GMSL, FPD-Link, Ethernet, A2B, USB, CAN-FD, and how to characterize their utilization and performance.
• Solid grasp of the power related aspects of distributed embedded architectures, including efficient utilization of low-power states, wake propagation and sequencing.
• Some familiarity with automotive audio technologies including RNC, SDR, DSPs, i2s and A2B interfaces, amplifiers, mics, accelerometers and related peripherals.
• Conversant with wireless technologies like GNSS, BLE, LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi, and/or UWB.

Pay Disclosure

Pay Range: The salary range for this role is $237,000 - $296,000 annually for Bay Area 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.

Benefits: 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 atrivianbenefits.com.

You can apply for this role through careers.rivian.com (or throughinternal-careers-rivian.icims.com if you are a current employee). This job is not expected to be closed any sooner than 9/25/2026.

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 [email protected].

Candidate Data Privacy and Technology

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.

How We Use AI in Our Hiring Process: To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Rivian uses iCIMS Talent Cloud Artificial Intelligence (TCAI) and AI-enabled tools to assist with screening, reviewing, organizing and highlighting profiles and applications that match the key requirements for each role.

AI does not make hiring decisions: Qualified candidate applications are reviewed by a member of our team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use AI to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment. We are committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.

Participation in AI profile matching is entirely voluntary. If you prefer that your profile not be used in this process, you can opt out at any time. Opting out means your profile will be excluded from automated matching and will not be surfaced for additional roles through this system. Your current application remains active and will not be affected in any way.

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