Staff Validation Engineer

$167,400 - $209,300/Yr

Rivian - Palo Alto, CA

Full-time - Senior

Palo Alto, CA

Transportation Equipment Manufacturing

About the position

The Staff Validation Engineer at Rivian will lead efforts within the Platform Architecture team to characterize the in-system performance of low-voltage electrical (LVE) systems in Rivian vehicles. This hybrid software/hardware role requires a strong background in system software to identify, develop, and measure key system-level performance metrics, driving hardware architectural decision-making and validating results later in the design cycle. The role encompasses the characterization of computational, networking, and power-related performance dimensions of the LVE architecture.

Responsibilities

• Lead the hands-on efforts to characterize system-wide computational performance across various LVE systems, including infotainment, telematics, wireless networking, in-cabin radar, passive entry, camera monitoring system, and more.
• Collaborate with hardware architecture, hardware design and software application teams to create comprehensive characterization plans to surface key performance metrics, locate bottlenecks and chokepoints, identify over-/under-design scenarios relative to app requirements.
• Execute characterization plans, develop analytics, and present clear validation metrics and associated reports to help drive architecture decision-making, and validate the resulting designs.
• Lead and support the software efforts related to characterization and validation efforts on various hardware testing configurations, including early prototypes boards, software bench-top vehicle sub-system mock-ups, lab cars, mules, and HIL infrastructure.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science/Engineering or related field.
• 8+ years of related work experience.
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or a related field, and a track record of hands-on experience in relevant practical settings.
• Strong software and hardware understanding of embedded computing architectures, and related characterization methods for quantifying system-level performance of their processors (e.g. CPUs, GPUs, ML cores), memory systems (e.g. RAM, caches, and storage), networking / peripheral interfaces, power states and management, etc.
• Direct experience with typical automotive embedded hardware components, including SoCs, MCUs, cameras or other sensors, de-/serializers, transceivers, networking components, and/or related networking and peripheral interfaces.
• Hands-on coding experience related to some combination of embedded platform bring-up, system software / applications development, or system-level hardware performance characterization and related software instrumentation, as well as test automation / scripting.
• Conversant with software stacks and drivers for embedded computing architectures typical in automotive applications (e.g. infotainment, telematics, ADAS), ranging from OS to RTOS to bare-metal, and respective performance characterization methodologies.
• Familiarity with electrical engineering fundamentals, and related test and measurement equipment, e.g., scopes, DMMs, power supplies, logic analyzers, etc.
• Understanding of automotive network architectures and protocols, and how to characterize and validate relevant performance metrics at the component and system levels (e.g., throughput, latency, collisions, input-to-actuation delays, photons-to-photons latencies, etc.)

Nice-to-haves

• Innate curiosity to figure out how systems work by decomposing them through the application of first principles, an ability to translate this into measurable metrics, and a drive to leverage these methods to optimize design.

Benefits

• Robust medical/Rx, dental and vision insurance packages for full-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26. Coverage is effective on the first day of employment, and Rivian covers most of the premiums.