Principal Program Manager, Carline – Autonomous Vehicles

NVIDIA NVIDIA · Semiconductors · Santa Clara, CA

Principal Program Manager to coordinate the complete implementation of self-driving features for an autonomous vehicle model, partnering with engineering, product, system, and validation teams to bring next-generation driving intelligence from concept to production. The role requires leading the full lifecycle of an autonomous driving program, managing cross-functional teams, schedules, dependencies, and risks, and driving issue resolution and process refinement.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead the full lifecycle of an autonomous driving program—from definition and prototype to mass-production readiness.
  2. Coordinate multi-functional engineering teams (software, perception, control, hardware, testing) toward shared milestones.
  3. Manage schedules, dependencies, and risk across internal and customer programs with transparency and urgency.
  4. Define and supervise key metrics (velocity, release cadence, validation readiness) to ensure high-quality delivery.
  5. Act as the single point of accountability for vehicle-line AD feature integration and customer communication.

Skills

Required

  • BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).
  • 15+ years of program or project management experience within autonomous driving, ADAS, or intelligent-EV domains.
  • Proven success leading cross-functional technical teams and delivering sophisticated systems on aggressive timelines.
  • Strong understanding of autonomous driving software stack (perception, planning, control, compute, E/E architecture).
  • Excellent communication and influencing skills; comfortable operating across global teams and executive levels.
  • Solid command of modern project tools: Jira, Confluence, Git, dashboards, or similar.
  • Proficient in English; capable of leading cross-region discussions with customers and suppliers.

Nice to have

  • Experience in tech-driven automotive environments.
  • Familiarity with high-compute AD platforms (NVIDIA Orin, Qualcomm Ride).
  • Background in system integration, simulation, or automated validation.
  • Demonstrated ability to scale agile execution frameworks across engineering teams.
  • PMP or Scrum Master certification is a plus.

What the JD emphasized

  • 15+ years of program or project management experience within autonomous driving, ADAS, or intelligent-EV domains.
  • Proven success leading cross-functional technical teams and delivering sophisticated systems on aggressive timelines.
  • Strong understanding of autonomous driving software stack (perception, planning, control, compute, E/E architecture).