Staff Technical Product & Program Manager, Architecture & Fallback Strategy
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Aurora hires talented people with diverse backgrounds who are ready to help build a transportation ecosystem that will make our roads safer, get crucial goods where they need to go, and make mobility more efficient and accessible for all. We’re searching for a Technical Program Manager to join Aurora’s Product & Program Management team, focusing on two primary responsibilities: enabling future business goals by partnering with senior engineering leaders to craft coherent architectures for future hardware platforms, and working with autonomy leaders and external partners to plan and execute on the delivery of future fallback systems. The Aurora Architecture team operates across the combined system of software and hardware, e.g. on-vehicle software, on-vehicle hardware (compute, network, sensors), connected software services and associated network services.
In this role, you will
- Partner closely with senior executives and engineering leaders to drive the development of architectural proposals, evaluate new technologies, and execute efforts to de-risk architectural decisions across hardware and software systems.
- Coordinate with various engineering teams/departments to ensure that the architecture meets business objectives and enables transitions through various generations of hardware.
- Work with a team of experts from across Aurora to take complex, highly ambiguous challenges and transform them into actionable architectural solutions and improvements that can be implemented by teams across Aurora.
- Drive successful definitions, recommendations, decisions, execution, and delivery of major architectural initiatives, including:
- Foundational toolchain and performance efforts for Automotive SoC-based compute platforms
- Optimizing the Aurora Driver Architecture for our scale-generation vehicle platform and Aurora Driver Hardware Kit
- First and third-party fallback systems that enable safe, capable, and cost-effective system architectures.
- Driving architectural improvements to Autonomy stacks to enable more efficient onboard execution at scale
- Serve as a go-to resource for information and up-to-date status for relevant programs, facilitating regular executive program reviews and ensuring agenda alignment with the acting chair.
- Develop detailed and credible engineering plans for architectural projects.
- Partner with stakeholders across hardware and software to understand the company product roadmap and how architectural changes will support future products.
- Proactively identify and remove obstacles to unblock team execution and balance competing priorities, escalating when necessary to maintain momentum and clear roadblocks.
- Lead evaluation and integration of vendor-supplied fallback systems.
Required Qualifications
- Minimum of 5 years experience as a Technical Program Manager, Product Manager, or Engineering Manager in autonomous systems, robotics, embedded systems, or software development, with an architecture focus.
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Math, Information Systems, or a related area.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to adjust communication based on audience, including senior executives.
- Strong technical aptitude and an ability to understand complex technical designs, software development lifecycle, challenges, and risks; ability to work closely with engineers.
- Strong experience in project management; practical familiarity with both Agile and Waterfall methodologies and flexibility to adapt and apply them when appropriate to improve and not hinder team execution velocity, quality, and efficacy.
- Ability to work in Mountain View, CA, with occasional travel expected to support vendor conversations and cross-functional team alignment.
Desirable Qualifications
- A graduate degree in a related field (or equivalent experience).
- Experience with Pytorch, Tensorrt, CUDA, and/or DRIVE OS.
- Experience with big software platform migrations or optimizing hardware resources (data, memory, compute).
- Experience with complex autonomous systems, functional safety, system safety, or safety engineering.
- Experience with managing programs with a mix of internal and external (third party) stakeholders.
The base salary range for this position is $181-$262K per year. Aurora’s pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, the successful candidate’s starting base pay will be determined based on factors including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, relevant education or training, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future. The successful candidate will also be eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and benefits.
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At the core of everything we do is our commitment to safety. Building best-in-class self-driving technology will take time, and we believe that each employee at Aurora has a role in contributing to safety, every step of the way. Aurora expects commitment to our safety policies from every employee, and seeks candidates who take an active responsibility, can contribute to building an atmosphere of trust, and invest in the organization’s long-term success by prioritizing working safely, no matter what.
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