Principal Software Engineer Team Lead, Map Engineering

We are actively seeking a highly motivated and exceptional senior engineering manager to lead the Map Engineering team. The team is responsible for the design and development of cutting-edge systems and software for Motional’s current and future Mapping efforts. This role is critical in leading the scaling and operationalization of our production mapping pipeline. As a manager of the Mapping organization, you will be responsible for supporting multiple sub-teams.

This is an exciting opportunity to have a direct impact on the company’s business goals by helping the teams solve complex technical problems, which allows us to reliably scale production maps to meet the high-reliability needs of commercial operations.

What You'll Be Doing

• Provide people leadership and build a strong engineering and leadership bench within the Mapping organization.
• Partner with leadership to influence the long-term vision and technical strategy for scaling production mapping solutions, emphasizing cloud-native infrastructure and real-time update capabilities.
• Serve as an interface and collaboration partner with key adjacent domains (Localization, Perception, and Planning) and customers (Mapping Operations, Commercial).
• Uplevel the teams by creating robust processes and quality frameworks that increase productivity, efficiency, and output for safety-critical systems.
• Own the operationalization of the commercial mapping pipeline, focusing on throughput, reliability, and low-latency map delivery to the AV stack.
• Prioritize safety above all else in designing and implementing software solutions, ensuring the highest standards of safety in our autonomous driving efforts.
• Regularly evaluate current technology and technical standards; promote and implement new technologies, best practices, and process improvements across the data and compute stack.
• Oversee the design and architecture of scalable mapping infrastructure and tools, supporting petabyte-scale data processing.
• Oversee the development and deployment of efficient and reliable large-scale distributed systems.

What We're Looking For

• BS or MS in Computer Science or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience managing engineers and 2+ years of managing managers in a fast-paced production environment.
• Proven ability to partner with leadership and set a multi-year vision and technical strategy for complex engineering domains.
• Proven ability to partner and collaborate with upstream and downstream teams to balance urgent short-term deliverables with smart long-term investments.
• Experience partnering with technical leadership on the team to build and execute the technical roadmap.
• Experience building resilient teams, leadership bench and upleveling them with coaching and resources.
• Experience building and shipping production software with demonstrated technical judgment to make informed technical and product decisions in a safety-critical environment.
• Deep technical experience designing and operating large-scale data processing pipelines and geospatial infrastructure.
• Experience integrating Machine Learning or Computer Vision techniques for automated map feature extraction and quality validation.
• Experience in the Mapping / Robotics / AV industry is strongly preferred.

Bonus Points

• Specific knowledge of high-definition map formats, dynamic map layers, and map data validation.
• Familiarity with cloud-based geodata processing platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).

Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.

Our journey is always people first.

We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.

Higher purpose, greater impact.

We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do.

Scale up, not starting up.

Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.

Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.