--- title: 'Senior, Software Engineer - Autonomy Core Frameworks at Torc Robotics' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-autonomy-core-frameworks-torc-robotics-us-ann-arbor-mi-k3c7sdbmz4mh' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-09' --- # Senior, Software Engineer - Autonomy Core Frameworks at Torc Robotics - **Company:** Torc Robotics - **Location:** US Ann Arbor MI Fort Worth TX Blacksburg, VA - **Compensation:** $161k–$193k - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-09-08 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/torcrobotics/jobs/8703221002 ## Job description ## About the Company At Torc, we have always believed that autonomous vehicle technology will transform how we travel, move freight, and do business. A leader in autonomous driving since 2007, Torc has spent over a decade commercializing our solutions with experienced partners. [Now a part of the Daimler family](https://torc.ai/daimler-testing-automated-trucks-public/), we are focused solely on developing software for automated trucks to transform how the world moves freight. Join us and catapult your career with the company that helped pioneer autonomous technology, and the first AV software company with the vision to partner directly with a truck manufacturer. Meet the Team The Senior Autonomy Core Frameworks Software Engineer plays a critical role in architecting and advancing the foundational frameworks that underpin Torc's autonomous driving stack. This role helps in owning technical direction for the software in core autonomy components, helping to raise the bar on code quality, and driving improvements across the autonomy software. As a senior technical leader, you will collaborate closely with the Behavior and Perception teams within Autonomy to design robust, composable architectural patterns that serve as the foundation for safe, performant, reliable autonomous operation. This position demands deep technical expertise in software architecture and autonomous vehicle fundamentals. ## What You’ll Do - Lead the architecture, design, implementation, and evolution of core frameworks that serve as the foundation for Torc's autonomous driving stack, including state management, inter-component communication, abstraction layers, and common utilities used across all software systems. - Drive the technical direction for real-time C++ architectural components and patterns responsible for reliable system-wide data flow, component coordination, error handling, and operational observability. - Establish scalable architectural patterns and abstractions that enable autonomous driving capabilities while driving technical tradeoff discussions and long-term design decisions that shape the entire platform. - Collaborate across Behavior and Perception teams to keep integration boundaries clean and shared abstractions coherent. - Lead architecture reviews, design discussions, and code reviews while establishing engineering standards that improve reliability, maintainability, testability, and scalability across the platform. - Mentor software engineers through technical coaching, architectural guidance, and day-to-day collaboration while raising engineering standards and fostering technical excellence across the organization. - Champion architectural quality through systematic validation, comprehensive testing strategies, observability frameworks, and production readiness practices that ensure platform robustness at scale. - Contribute to root cause analysis of complex platform-level issues and drive architectural improvements that enhance system reliability, performance, and operational resilience. - Define and evolve simulation and validation frameworks that enable rigorous testing of core architectural components across diverse operational scenarios and edge cases. - Evaluate emerging architectural patterns, systems research, and advanced techniques that can strengthen the platform's foundation and enable future autonomous driving capabilities. - Communicate complex architectural concepts and technical vision effectively across engineering teams, product, and leadership while building consensus around platform direction and technical strategy. ## What You’ll Need to Succeed - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related technical discipline with 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, or - Master's degree with 6+ years of professional experience, or - Demonstrated success designing and evolving complex, production software platforms with ownership of architectural decisions - Deep experienced with C++17 and recent standards - Comfortable with using Python to help script and glue systems together - Experience working across autonomous systems/robotics, distributed systems, or complex embedded environments using middleware with pub-sub communications patterns - Strong experience with testing, continuous integration, and build systems - Deep experience with systems-level software design, including experience managing technical debt, refactoring large codebases, and evolving platforms while maintaining stability and performance. - Experience mentoring engineers through technical leadership, architecture reviews, code reviews, and establishing engineering standards that scale across organizations. - Strong mastery of software engineering fundamentals including modular/composable architecture, design patterns, concurrency, testing strategies, and long-term maintainability. Bonus Points - Experience architecting, maintaining, and using robotics middleware's (E.g., ROS 2) - Deep expertise in distributed systems design, including consensus algorithms, state synchronization, event-driven architectures, deterministic replay, etc. - Familiarity with ISO 26262, SOTIF, ASPICE, or other safety-critical software development standards. - Experience with GitHub Actions and Jenkins - Experience with Bazel and Bazel-based build systems - Experience designing or building observability, logging, and monitoring systems for complex distributed systems. - Experience working with simulations for regression testing - Experience managing versioning and conversion of data schemas at scale ## Perks of Being a Full-time Torc’r Torc cares about our team members and we strive to provide benefits and resources to support their health, work/life balance, and future. Our culture is collaborative, energetic, and team focused. Torc offers: - A competitive compensation package that includes a bonus component and stock options - 100% paid medical, dental, and vision premiums for full-time employees - 401K plan with a 6% employer match - Flexibility in schedule and generous paid vacation (available immediately after start date) - AD+D and Life Insurance At Torc, we’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We celebrate the uniqueness of our Torc’rs and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, veteran status, or disabilities. Even if you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications listed for this opportunity, we encourage you to apply. Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several geographic markets. Pay is based on a number of factors and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Torc's total compensation package will also include our corporate bonus and stock option plan. Dependent on the position offered, sign-on payments, relocation, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. Job ID:  102923 Hiring Range for Job Opening US Pay Range $160,800—$193,000 USD ## About Torc Robotics ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Torc Robotics is an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck developing SAE Level 4 autonomous driving software for long-haul, hub-to-hub freight trucks. - **Entity Type**: Private (subsidiary of Daimler Truck) - **Headquarters**: Blacksburg, Virginia, USA (additional offices in Fort Worth, TX; Ann Arbor, MI; Montréal, Canada) - **Founded**: 2005 (as Torc Technologies) - **Founders**: Group of Virginia Tech alumni (team from the DARPA Urban Challenge) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Autonomous vehicle technology / Trucking & freight logistics - **Target customers**: B2B – large fleet operators and trucking companies (middle-mile hub-to-hub routes over 250 miles) - **Mission or purpose statement**: “Drive the future of freight” by commercializing safe, self-driving trucks ## Products & Services - **Torc Self-Driving Software**: Full-stack autonomy system (perception, planning, control) for SAE Level 4 operation, integrated into the Daimler Truck Freightliner Cascadia platform. - **Autonomous-Ready Cascadia**: A redundant chassis with fail-safe steering, braking, power net, and secondary communications network built by Daimler Truck. - **Testing & Validation**: Closed-course and public-road testing in Virginia, Texas, New Mexico, and 20+ U.S. states over the past 14 years. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private subsidiary of Daimler Truck) - **Key Metric**: Commercial launch targeted for **2027**; first driverless (no safety driver) journey completed in **2025**. Acquired Algolux (Montréal) in 2023 for computer vision and ML expertise. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Daimler Truck (parent/owner), AAA (safety partnership), Transdev (shuttle partnership), Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, and major fleet operators. - **Growth Signals**: Expanding into Canada (Montréal office); headcount growing with 54 open positions posted on Greenhouse; Daimler Truck is building production-ready autonomous Cascadia chassis; years of real-world testing. ## Competitive Advantages - **Deep truck OEM relationship**: As an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck, Torc has direct integration into the leading Class 8 truck platform (Freightliner Cascadia). - **20-year legacy**: Founded in 2005 from DARPA Urban Challenge roots; one of the first AV software companies to focus exclusively on trucking. - **Safety-first design**: Redundant steering, braking, and communications, plus a partnership with AAA on safety criteria. - **Focused product**: Targets only highway middle-mile (250+ miles), avoiding complex city driving – a clear, commercially viable use case. ## Strategic Focus - **Commercialization**: First market-ready generation of self-driving trucks on sale in **2027**. Currently validating the system on public roads with safety drivers. - **Scaling operations**: Expanding engineering centers (Montréal, Ann Arbor, Fort Worth) and building a robust data/ML pipeline at petabyte scale. - **Talent development**: Growing “Emerging Talent” program (co-ops, internships, early career) and partnerships with educational institutions. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Described as collaborative, ego-free, and innovative. “Everyone is empowered to solve challenges.” Open forums and accessible leadership. - **Remote/Hybrid**: Multiple remote positions available (U.S. and Canada), plus on-site roles in Blacksburg, Ann Arbor, Fort Worth, and Montréal. - **Benefits (U.S.)**: - 100% company-paid employee premiums for medical, dental, vision - Generous front-loaded PTO, plus a winter shutdown (Christmas–New Year) - Fully paid parental leave (100% salary continuation) - 401(k) with company match, LTD/STD, life insurance, pet insurance, legal services - **Benefits (Canada)**: Extended health/dental/vision, RRSP with DPSP matching, employer-paid life/AD&D, LTD. - **Engineering culture**: Work on cutting-edge autonomy, perception, ML, and data infrastructure alongside world-class experts. ## Sources 1. [torc.ai/about-us](https://torc.ai/about-us/) 2. [torc.ai/careers](https://torc.ai/careers/) 3. [torc.ai/frequently-asked-questions](https://torc.ai/frequently-asked-questions/) 4. 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