Director, Systems Engineering

Nuro Nuro · Robotics · CA · Systems

Nuro is seeking a Director of Systems Engineering to lead a team responsible for defining, analyzing, validating, and improving the performance of their self-driving technology (Nuro Driver). This role involves translating product goals into technical requirements, managing trade-offs, and ensuring system reliability for safe, scalable deployment in autonomous vehicles. The position requires strong technical depth, leadership, and experience in complex hardware and software systems, ideally in safety-critical domains.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead and grow a team of Systems Engineers responsible for translating NuroDriver product and deployment goals into clear system requirements, measurable performance targets, validation strategies, and architecture tradeoffs across autonomy software, sensing hardware, safety, and real-world operations.
  2. Decompose critical autonomy use cases into actionable requirements for sensors, sensing systems, perception systems, and broader autonomy system behavior.
  3. Establish clear performance standards for complex hardware and software systems operating in real-world autonomous driving environments.
  4. Conduct technical analyses to determine required performance levels across sensing, perception, and other autonomy-critical capabilities.
  5. Lead trade studies that inform hardware architecture, software architecture, sensor configuration, system design, and deployment readiness.

Skills

Required

  • 7+ years of systems engineering experience
  • 5+ years of direct management experience
  • Experience managing managers and scaling teams
  • Strong systems engineering fundamentals, including requirements definition, system decomposition, verification and validation methods, and performance analysis.
  • Experience working on complex hardware and software systems, ideally in autonomy, robotics, automotive, aerospace, defense, or another safety-critical domain.
  • Strong technical judgment and the ability to make pragmatic architectural and prioritization tradeoffs.
  • Experience partnering across software, hardware, test, safety, and product teams to drive system-level outcomes.
  • A bachelor’s degree in a relevant engineering or technical field such as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Controls, Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have

  • Deep technical knowledge of modern perception systems and the ML techniques that power them.
  • Experience with multiple sensing modalities such as cameras, radar, lidar, ultrasonics, or other autonomy-relevant sensors.
  • Experience with autonomous driving, robotics, advanced driver assistance systems, or safety-critical AI systems.
  • Software development experience in C++, Python, or related technical environments.
  • Experience building verification strategies for systems deployed in real-world, safety-critical environments.
  • Experience influencing technical roadmaps and architectural decisions across large, cross-functional engineering organizations

What the JD emphasized

  • complex hardware and software systems
  • safety-critical domain
  • complex systems
  • safety-critical environments
  • safety-critical AI systems