---
title: 'Staff Engineer, Autonomous Driving Data Platform & Curation at Cariad, Inc.'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-autonomous-driving-data-platform-curation-cariad-inc-mountain-y9ssmhchhgkt'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Staff Engineer, Autonomous Driving Data Platform & Curation at Cariad, Inc.

- **Company:** Cariad, Inc.
- **Location:** Mountain View, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-09-11
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/cariadinc/jobs/5421417008

## Job description

We are CARIAD, an automotive software development team with the Volkswagen Group. Our mission is to make the automotive experience safer, more sustainable, more comfortable, more digital, and more fun. To achieve that we are building the leading tech stack for the automotive industry and creating a unified software platform for over 10 million new vehicles per year. We’re looking for talented, digital minds like you to help us create code that moves the world. Together with you, we’ll build outstanding digital experiences and products for all Volkswagen Group brands that will transform mobility. Join us as we shape the future of the car and everyone around it.

​Role Summary:

The Staff Engineer, Autonomous Driving Data Platform & Curation is a hands-on staff-level individual contributor who owns the path from raw multimodal vehicle data to reliable, versioned, and model-ready datasets. The ideal candidate combines production data or ML systems experience with practical knowledge of autonomous-driving data and can lead ingestion, schema, storage, query, curation, quality, and delivery. This engineer designs and operates datasets containing more than 10 million records or samples, evaluates formats such as Parquet and Lance, and enables efficient filtering, slicing, random access, and sequential retrieval. The role also advances data-quality monitoring, statistical and out-of-distribution detection, rule-based and model-based tagging, model-in-the-loop and human-in-the-loop labeling, and future data preparation for imitation learning and reinforcement learning. ​

Role Responsibilities:

Autonomous Data Architecture, Storage & Query

- Design canonical representations for drives, scenarios, clips, frames, trajectories, sensor references, vehicle state, map context, labels, predictions, and dataset manifests.
- Build and maintain validated, versioned datasets containing more than 10 million records or samples on local or cloud object storage.
- Evaluate Parquet, Apache Arrow, Lance, and related technologies; own partitioning, indexing, file sizing, compaction, schema evolution, lineage, and reproducibility.
- Optimize filtering, projection, joins, scenario slicing, random sampling, shuffling, sequential retrieval, and model data-loading performance.
- Measure and improve ingestion throughput, query latency, training throughput, storage utilization, reliability, and cost per usable sample.

Autonomous Dataset Lifecycle, Curation & Training Readiness

- Work effectively with synchronized camera and other sensor data, ego state, localization, calibration, coordinate frames, map context, control actions, clips, and trajectories.
- Translate perception, planning, VLA, and evaluation needs into schemas, searchable attributes, scenario definitions, sampling strategies, and reproducible dataset splits.
- Build reliable batch or distributed pipelines for ingestion, transformation, enrichment, validation, cataloging, and publication, including retries, backfills, idempotency, and observability.
- Enable self-service discovery and composition for lane keeping, lane changes, long-tail scenarios, hard examples, balanced datasets, and leakage-resistant train, validation, and test splits.

Data Quality, Statistics & Distribution Monitoring

- Define automated quality gates, dashboards, and alerts for completeness, validity, freshness, duplication, synchronization, calibration, corruption, label integrity, coverage, balance, and cost.
- Apply statistics, sampling, and distribution comparisons to detect drift, anomalies, underrepresented conditions, and out-of distribution data.
- Use deterministic checks, heuristic rules, geometry and metadata queries, embeddings, VLMs, and learned models to assess quality and create searchable scenario tags.
- Quarantine suspicious data and lead root-cause analysis across collection, synchronization, schema, transformation, storage, annotation, sampling, and model-consumer failures.

Auto-Labeling, Closed-Loop Data Automation & RL Readiness

- Design model-in-the-loop and human-in-the-loop labeling workflows with confidence thresholds, review routing, audit sampling, disagreement handling, and label provenance.
- Close the loop from model failures and edge cases through selection, annotation, quality review, dataset publication, training, and evaluation.
- Evaluate auto-labeled and synthetic data using label quality, coverage, distributional impact, and downstream model performance.
- Prepare replayable trajectory data for imitation learning and offline RL, including observations, actions, timestamps, policy versions, interventions, rewards, termination conditions, and alignment checks.

Cross-Functional Technical Leadership, Reliability & Cost

- Serve as the staff-level owner and escalation point for dataset architecture, storage and query performance, data quality, reliability, reproducibility, and cost.
- Align vehicle collection, autonomy metadata, model interfaces, annotation, storage, governance, and training requirements across partner teams.
- Communicate risks, trade-offs, decisions, and recovery plans with clear evidence; maintain traceable schemas, data contracts, lineage, operating procedures, and incident records.
- Mentor engineers and strengthen design reviews, testing, observability, reproducibility, cost awareness, and data engineering standards.

​

​General Skills:

- Deep production experience with Parquet and/or Lance, including dataset migration, indexing, compaction, schema evolution, version maintenance, cloud storage, random access, or training-loader optimization.
- Experience with large-scale multimodal autonomous-driving data from cameras, LiDAR, radar, maps, localization, vehicle state, simulation, or other sensor-rich robotic systems.
- Experience building auto-labeling, active-learning, model-in-the-loop, or human-in-the-loop systems, including confidence calibration, annotation routing, review workflows, audit sampling, label agreement, and annotation QA.
- Strong statistical knowledge for quality monitoring, distribution comparison, drift measurement, anomaly detection, and out-of-distribution detection.
- Experience using rule-based logic, geometry and metadata heuristics, embeddings, semantic search, VLMs, classifiers, or other learned methods to tag data, assess quality, mine edge cases, detect hard examples, or prioritize review.
- Experience connecting dataset metrics, composition, label quality, drift, cost, and downstream model performance through dashboards and evaluation.
- Experience optimizing distributed ML data loading, caching, sampling, preprocessing, and the data-to-GPU path.
- Experience preparing sequential or trajectory datasets for imitation learning, offline reinforcement learning, preference or ranking data, reward modeling, or policy evaluation, including observations, actions, rewards, policy provenance, and replay semantics.
- Familiarity with data governance, privacy, retention, redaction, access control, auditability, and security requirements for fleet-collected sensor data.

​

​Required Specialized Skills:

- Demonstrated ownership of production data pipelines and large datasets, including systems with more than 10 million records or samples or comparable multi-terabyte scale.
- Strong dataset and storage foundation, including schema design, columnar storage, partitioning, file and fragment sizing, compression, predicate pushdown, projection, indexing, compaction, schema evolution, versioning, lineage, and reproducibility.
- Hands-on experience with Parquet, Lance, Apache Arrow, or a comparable analytical dataset technology, with the ability to reason about format selection and benchmark storage, query, update, and model-loading trade-offs.
- Strong Python and SQL skills with production software-engineering practices, including testing, code review, version control, profiling, debugging, maintainable APIs, and operational documentation.
- Experience building distributed or parallel data pipelines and orchestration using technologies such as Ray, Spark, Beam, Dask, Airflow, Dagster, or comparable systems.
- Experience with local or cloud object storage, such as S3 or GCS, and practical understanding of throughput, request patterns, caching, data movement, reliability, access control, and cost.
- Basic autonomous-driving or robotics data knowledge, including temporal sensor data, camera and other sensor modalities, timestamps and synchronization, calibration, ego and vehicle state, coordinate frames, clips, trajectories, scenarios, and annotations.
- Ability to design automated data validation and observability and translate ML training, sampling, evaluation, and failure-analysis needs into reliable data products.

​

​Desired Skills:

- Deep production experience with Parquet and/or Lance, including dataset migration, indexing, compaction, schema evolution, version maintenance, cloud storage, random access, or training-loader optimization.
- Experience with large-scale multimodal autonomous-driving data from cameras, LiDAR, radar, maps, localization, vehicle state, simulation, or other sensor-rich robotic systems.
- Experience building auto-labeling, active-learning, model-in-the-loop, or human-in-the-loop systems, including confidence calibration, annotation routing, review workflows, audit sampling, label agreement, and annotation QA.
- Strong statistical knowledge for quality monitoring, distribution comparison, drift measurement, anomaly detection, and out-of-distribution detection.
- Experience using rule-based logic, geometry and metadata heuristics, embeddings, semantic search, VLMs, classifiers, or other learned methods to tag data, assess quality, mine edge cases, detect hard examples, or prioritize review.
- Experience connecting dataset metrics, composition, label quality, drift, cost, and downstream model performance through dashboards and evaluation.
- Experience optimizing distributed ML data loading, caching, sampling, preprocessing, and the data-to-GPU path.
- Experience preparing sequential or trajectory datasets for imitation learning, offline reinforcement learning, preference or ranking data, reward modeling, or policy evaluation, including observations, actions, rewards, policy provenance, and replay semantics.
- Familiarity with data governance, privacy, retention, redaction, access control, auditability, and security requirements for fleet-collected sensor data.

​Years of Relevant Experience:

- 8+ years of experience in applied machine learning or deep learning
- 4+ years of experience reinforcement learning, computer vision, or AD/ADAS systems.
- Strong candidates with equivalent industry experience will be considered

​Required Education:

​Master’s in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related field

​Desired Education:

​PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related field

## Compensation

Salary range is dependent on factors such as geographical differentials, credentials or certifications, industry-based experience, qualification and training. In the city of Mountain View, CA, the salary range for this position is $161,710 - $234,325.

CARIAD, Inc. provides performance based merits and annual bonus along with a competitive benefits package. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, 401k with employer match and defined contribution plan, short and long term disability, basic life and AD&D insurance, employee assistance program, tuition reimbursement and student loan repayment plans, maternity and non-primary caregiver leave, adoption assistance, employee referral program and vacation and paid holidays. We also offer a unique vehicle lease program that covers registration and insurance fees.

CARIAD is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  We welcome and encourage applicants from all backgrounds, and do not discriminate based on race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, color, gender identity/expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by applicable laws.

Employment with Cariad Inc. is contingent upon the successful completion of this screening process. We emphasize the importance of compliance with export control and sanctions laws as a fundamental aspect of our operations. Our company is dedicated to adhering to these regulations to ensure the lawful and ethical conduct of our business activities. Employment with our company is contingent on either verifying U.S. citizenship or U.S. lawful permanent resident status or obtaining any necessary license or confirming the availability of an applicable exemption or license exception. You, the applicant, will be required to answer certain questions for export control purposes, and that information will be reviewed by compliance personnel to ensure compliance with federal law. Cariad Inc. may choose not to apply for a license or use an applicable license exception (if available) for such individuals whose access to export-controlled technology or software source code may require authorization and may decline to proceed with an applicant on that basis alone.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge and agree to participate in the export control and sanctions compliance screening process. Your cooperation in this matter is essential to our shared success and the integrity of our operations. Thank you for your understanding and commitment to upholding these important standards.

## About Cariad, Inc.

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: CARIAD is the global automotive software company of the Volkswagen Group, developing the software-defined vehicle platforms that power iconic brands like Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bentley.
- **Entity Type**: Private (wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group)
- **Headquarters**: Mountain View, California, United States (global HQ in Wolfsburg, Germany)
- **Founded**: 2020 (as a standalone entity; predecessor organization formed in 2018)
- **Founders**: Part of Volkswagen Group; not founded by individual entrepreneurs.

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Automotive Software, Mobility Technology, Embedded Systems, ADAS/Automated Driving, Infotainment, Cloud Connectivity
- Target customers: B2B — exclusively serves the Volkswagen Group brands (Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda, CUPRA, Lamborghini, Bentley)
- Mission or purpose statement: "To bring automotive engineering and software development closer together, making mobility safer, more sustainable, and more comfortable in every way."

## Products & Services
- **Infotainment & Digital Experience**: Scalable infotainment stack powering AR head-up displays, AI-powered digital assistants, real-time EV route planning, and in-car app ecosystems.
- **ADAS & Automated Driving**: Scalable solutions for automated driving functions, using AI and sensor tech in partnership with Bosch and Horizon Robotics, accessible across the Group’s vehicle lineup.
- **Connect & Cloud**: Cloud infrastructure supporting over 45 million connected vehicles across 50+ countries, enabling over-the-air updates and smart services.
- **Vehicle Energy, Motion & Body System**: A scalable platform controlling how vehicles move, steer, brake, and manage energy, developed in close collaboration with Group brands.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (fully owned by Volkswagen Group, not independently valued)
- **Key Metric**: Employs approximately 4,000+ people globally (CARIAD, Inc. employs ~108 people in the US); software platforms power over 45 million vehicles
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Sole stakeholder is Volkswagen Group; key technology partners include Bosch and Horizon Robotics.
- **Growth Signals**: Operates across 5 global tech hubs (Silicon Valley, Berlin, Beijing, Wolfsburg, Munich) and 7 countries; expanding engineering roles in AI, ADAS, and embedded machine learning; recent (~2026) hiring surge with a yearly job posting increase of +162.5%.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Scale & Distribution**: Access to the Volkswagen Group’s massive global scale, with iconic brands (Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley) and a fleet of 45M+ vehicles as a software deployment base.
- **Cross-Brand Platform**: Unique ability to develop a single software platform that scales across multiple premium and volume brands, giving engineers impact far beyond a single model line.
- **Certified Expertise**: ISO 9001 and ISO/SAE 21434 (cybersecurity) certified, ensuring high standards for quality and security in automotive software.
- **Global & Local**: Combines the agility of a Silicon Valley software company with the resources and stability of one of the world’s largest automotive groups.

## Strategic Focus
- **Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Platform**: Building a unified, scalable software stack that decouples hardware and software to enable continuous over-the-air updates and new revenue services.
- **Automated Driving Leadership**: Advancing Level 2+ and Level 3 automated driving functions in partnership with sensor and AI leaders.
- **AI Integration**: Embedding machine learning and AI into the vehicle experience — from assistants to autonomous functions — with active hiring for ML engineers.
- **Regional Adaptation**: Ensuring software is tailored to local markets (e.g., China, US, Europe) while maintaining a global core platform.

## Why Work Here
- **Global Impact at Scale**: Engineers get to work on software that will be deployed in millions of vehicles from legendary brands like Porsche, Audi, and Lamborghini — a scale few software companies outside of big tech can match.
- **Diverse, International Team**: A culture of 75+ nationalities and over 4,000 CARIDIANs, with a focus on collaboration, trust, and transparency. Values include "Can-Do Attitude," "Mutual Trust," and "Maximum Transparency."
- **Flexible Work**: Offers flexible working models and remote work options, with 30 days of paid leave and an attractive remuneration system. US offices in Mountain View, CA and Redmond, WA.
- **Career Development**: Continuous learning, professional development programs, and individual career paths. Strong emphasis on technical growth alongside personal development.
- **Tech Stack**: Engineers work on cutting-edge AI, embedded ML, cloud infrastructure, real-time systems, and autonomous driving technologies. The hiring process includes a technical interview (with possible Futurepath assessment) and an HR interview.
- **Recent Hirings From**: Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, Volkswagen of America, Audi of America, Rivian, Argo AI — indicating a competitive, high-caliber talent environment.

## Sources
1. [CARIAD Official Company Page](https://cariad.technology/de/en/company.html)
2. [CARIAD Careers Page](https://cariad.technology/de/en/careers.html)
3. [CARIAD Job Board (Greenhouse)](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/cariadinc)
4. [CARIAD, Inc. LinkedIn Profile](https://www.linkedin.com/company/cariadinc)

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