Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Behaviors

We're Cruise, a self-driving service designed for the cities we love.

We’re building the world’s most advanced self-driving vehicles to safely connect people to the places, things, and experiences they care about. We believe self-driving vehicles will help save lives, reshape cities, give back time in transit, and restore freedom of movement for many.

In our cars, you’re free to be yourself. It’s the same here at Cruise. We’re creating a culture that values the experiences and contributions of all of the unique individuals who collectively make up Cruise, so that every employee can do their best work. 

Cruise is committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment, both in our workplace and in our products. If you are looking to play a part in making a positive impact in the world by advancing the revolutionary work of self-driving cars, come join us. Even if you might not meet every requirement, we strongly encourage you to apply. You might just be the right candidate for us.

The Behaviors Teams at Cruise are responsible for developing machine learning models to enable our AV to drive smoothly and safely around an urban environment. This includes working on a variety of really exciting problems such as:

Building a globally consistent prediction of what all different nearby agents (like other cars, buses, animals, pedestrians) are going to in the next few seconds Generating safe, comfortable and feasible trajectories to navigate dynamic urban environments Scoring and selecting the optimal trajectory, optimizing across many dimensions such as safety, comfort and customer experience.

The Behaviors teams work closely with our Perception partners to get data from a variety of sensors, with rich attributes, simulation data, high-fidelity maps, etc, all of which is necessary to build the above technologies. We also collaborate with Robotics and Controls partners to enable the car to follow the planned path accurately.

The Staff Applied Research Scientist is a versatile role in Behaviors that drives a wide spectrum of applied ML research and development to overcome challenges on urban roads.

What you’ll be doing:

• From a research perspective, exploring, prototyping, validating, and iterating new algorithms

• On the development side, driving efforts to optimize, supervise and refine on-road performance for models on the path to production

• Considered one of the technical leaders of the department who guides current and future technology choices

• Have a deep understanding of the business and operational impact for different technology tradeoffs, and able to balance effectively based on company’s need

• Enable others engineers on the team to be more effective through design and code that is easy to extend and contribute into

• Capable of influencing others and building consensus even over contentious technical debates

What you must have:

• BS, MS, or higher degree, in CS/CE/EE, or equivalent industry experience

• Extensive experience with ML frameworks such as Tensorflow, Caffe, and PyTorch

• Extensive experience with machine learning and classification

• Strong programming skills in Python or C++

• Excellent mathematical reasoning skills, especially with probability

• Passionate about self driving car technology and its impact on the world!

Bonus points!

• PhD in machine learning or computer science

• Experience with LLMs, LLAs 

• Experience with ROS, OpenCV, Gazebo, or PCL

• Experience with CUDA

• Track record in deploying language models or robotics models into real world environments

• Experience with autonomous driving technologies

The salary range for this positi on is $183,600 - $270,000 . Compensation will vary depending on location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Y ou may also be offered a bonus, long-term incentives, and benefits. These ranges are subject to change.

Why Cruise?

Our benefits are here to support the whole you:

• Competitive salary and benefits 
• Medical / dental / vision, Life and AD&D
• Subsidized mental health benefits
• Paid time off and holidays
• Paid parental, medical, family care, and military leave of absence
• 401(k) Cruise matching program 
• Fertility benefits
• Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account
• Flexible Spending Account & Health Saving Account
• Perks Wallet program for benefits/perks
• Pre-tax Commuter benefit plan for local employees
• CruiseFlex, our location-flexible work policy. (Learn more about CruiseFlex) .

We’re Integrated

• Through our partnerships with General Motors and Honda, we are the only self-driving company with fully integrated manufacturing at scale.

We’re Funded

• GM, Honda, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart have invested billions in Cruise. Their backing for our technology demonstrates their confidence in our progress, team, and vision and makes us one of the leading autonomous vehicle organizations in the industry. Our deep resources greatly accelerate our operating speed.

Cruise LLC is an equal opportunity employer. We strive to create a supportive and inclusive workplace where contributions are valued and celebrated, and our employees thrive by being themselves and are inspired to do the best work of their lives. We seek applicants of all backgrounds and identities, across race, color, caste, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, age, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, or disability. Applicants will not be discriminated against based on these or other protected categories or social identities. Cruise will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, in accordance with applicable laws.

Cruise is committed to the full inclusion of all applicants. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process please let our recruiting team know or email .

We proactively work to design hiring processes that promote equity and inclusion while mitigating bias. To help us track the effectiveness and inclusivity of our recruiting efforts, please consider answering the following demographic questions. Answering these questions is entirely voluntary. Your answers to these questions will not be shared with the hiring decision makers and will not impact the hiring decision in any way. Instead, Cruise will use this information not only to comply with any government reporting obligations but also to track our progress toward meeting our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging objectives.

Candidates applying for roles that operate and remotely operate the AV: Licensed to drive a motor vehicle in the U.S. for the three years immediately preceding your application, currently holding an active in-state regular driver’s license or equivalent, and no more than one point on driving record. A successful completion of a background check, drug screen and DMV Motor Vehicle Record check is also required.

Note to Recruitment Agencies: Cruise does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Furthermore, Cruise does not pay placement fees for candidates submitted by any agency other than its approved partners.