The company

Outrider, the pioneer in autonomous yard operations for logistics hubs, helps large enterprises improve safety, increase efficiency, and optimize their workforce. The only company exclusively focused on automating all aspects of yard operations, Outrider eliminates manual tasks that are hazardous and repetitive. Outrider’s mission is to drive the rapid adoption of sustainable freight transportation by deploying zero-emission systems. Outrider is a private company backed by NEA, 8VC, and other top-tier investors.

The role

We’re searching for a talented, pedigreed software engineer who has developed and implemented all aspects of autonomy software and hardware for safety-critical, ground robotics applications.

In this role, you'll be the engineering lead for a category-defining ground vehicle system aimed at automating tractor-trailer movement at large logistics hubs. Your team and job scope will include all aspects of planning, perception, navigation, and infrastructure, and incorporate both cutting-edge techniques as well as proven, off-the-shelf technologies to support all autonomous trucking functions....and create unprecedented value and functionality for the modern supply chain.

The Head of Autonomy will report to the Vice President of Software Engineering. This role is mission-critical for helping deliver a safety-critical system for industrial automation. The opportunity offers a technical, hands-on team leader the chance to help develop a market-defining enterprise product that combines autonomous vehicle technology with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model.

The ideal candidate will embrace our goal to drive zero-emission, self-driving vehicle adoption, and help us realize our potential to define, build, and lead a new, category of robotic automation for the enterprise.

Duties and responsibilities

• • Lead and build the autonomy engineering team -- expect to spend 60-70% of your time performing hands-on development, with the remaining 30-40% managing schedule, removing obstacles, designing/coaching the team to hit aggressive milestones, and working with Outrider recruiting to add world-class engineers to the organization
  • Design, implement, test, and support all aspects of ground vehicle autonomy, including planning, perception, navigation, and infrastructure subsystems
  • Qualify all subsystems using objective measures
  • Understand and keep up-to-date with state of the art
  • Identify opportunities for increasing performance and reliability while reducing cost

Required qualifications

• • Background in developing the autonomy (sensing & decision-making) functions of a commercially-deployed, autonomous ground vehicle
  • Referencable ability to build and lead a high-performing engineering team
  • Masters or PhD, or Bachelors degree with commensurate experience in a related field
  • Ability to read/write/debug C++
  • Familiarity with Linux development and target environments
  • Prior experience developing and supporting all aspects of autonomy for a production ground-vehicle system, or an advanced research prototype (end-to-end, full lifecycle development preferred)
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Ideal qualifications

• • Background in safety-critical software/system development (preferably a ground robotics functional safety standard such as ISO 26262 or IEC 61508)
  • Background using Atlassian tools for development (JIRA, Confluence, BitBucket)
  • Ability to read/write/debug Python
  • Prior use of Git for software version control