Career Area:Technology, Digital and Data
Job Description:SummaryAt Caterpillar, technology has a purpose: to solve our customers' toughest challenges. Construction autonomy and Physical AI require trusted digital twins, high-fidelity simulation, scalable GPU computing, intelligent automation, and rigorous validation.
This Principal Engineer role is a hands-on technical leadership position responsible for architecture, critical implementation, engineering standards, cross-team alignment, and mentoring.
Role PurposeLead closed-loop simulation for robotics, autonomy, perception, planning, controls, and machine systems, bridging virtual environments with production robotics software and physical-machine testing.
What You Will Do• Define the technical architecture for robotics and Physical AI simulation.
• Build closed-loop environments for autonomous and semi-autonomous machines.
• Lead Software-in-the-Loop, Hardware-in-the-Loop, and Vehicle-in-the-Loop strategies.
• Integrate ROS 2, autonomy software, machine controls, sensors, and simulation platforms.
• Develop camera, LiDAR, radar, GNSS, IMU, and machine-sensor simulation capabilities.
• Lead scenario generation, replay, regression testing, robot learning, and policy evaluation.
• Establish simulation-to-real correlation, fidelity, timing, determinism, and acceptance criteria.
• Scale parallel robotics simulation, reinforcement learning, and synthetic-data workloads on CoreWeave GPU infrastructure.
Principal-Level Leadership Expectations• Own a major technical capability across multiple teams and programs.
• Translate ambiguous business and engineering problems into scalable architectures and production software.
• Lead architecture reviews, technical investigations, design decisions, and engineering standards.
• Balance research and prototyping with secure, maintainable, production-ready delivery.
• Mentor senior and developing engineers and support technical hiring and onboarding.
• Partner across simulation, robotics, autonomy, controls, AI, data, cloud, product, and customer-facing organizations.
Required Skills and Experience• Advanced software engineering experience using Python and one or more of C++, C#, Java, Go, or Node.js.
• Experience with APIs, distributed systems, containers, automated testing, CI/CD, source control, and observability.
• Experience with cloud platforms and cloud-native architectures, including Docker and Kubernetes.
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture and technical delivery across multiple teams.
• Strong communication, mentoring, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, or Cursor.
• Deep hands-on experience with NVIDIA Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab for robotics simulation, learning, training, testing, and validation.
• Expertise with NVIDIA Newton or comparable GPU-accelerated physics engines, including rigid-body dynamics, contacts, friction, terrain interaction, vehicles, and robotic manipulation.
• Experience with NVIDIA Omniverse, OpenUSD, ROS 2, Python, and C++.
• Experience with NVIDIA Replicator for synthetic data and ground-truth generation.
• Experience with NVIDIA Cosmos or comparable world foundation models for Physical AI and sim-to-real workflows.
• Knowledge of perception, localization, planning, control, reinforcement learning, and autonomous-machine systems.
• Experience with SIL, HIL, VIL, real-time systems, coordinate frames, synchronization, and deterministic execution.
• Experience using CUDA, Docker, Kubernetes, NVIDIA Container Toolkit, and CoreWeave or comparable GPU cloud platforms.
Top Candidate / Preferred Experience• Seven or more years of software development in robotics, autonomy, controls, or simulation.
• Experience with heavy equipment, off-road autonomy, autonomous vehicles, or industrial robotics.
• Experience building automated closed-loop regression environments and measurable sim-to-real correlation.
• Experience optimizing large-scale parallel simulation and robot-learning workloads.
Preferred Technology StackNVIDIA Newton | Isaac Sim | Isaac Lab | Omniverse | OpenUSD | ROS 2 | Replicator | Cosmos | CUDA | Python | C++ | Docker | Kubernetes | CoreWeave
Success Measures• Establish a clear reference architecture and technical roadmap for the capability area.
• Deliver reusable platform components and measurable engineering outcomes within the first 12 months.
• Improve quality, automation, scalability, and cross-team adoption while reducing duplicated solutions.
• Develop technical depth across the broader engineering organization through mentoring and standards.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS- This position requires the candidate to be based in Irving, TX (Dallas)
- Domestic relocation assistance is available for this position.
- Visa sponsorship is available for this position
Summary Pay Range:$147,760.00 - $240,110.00
Compensation and benefits offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, job level, market location, job-related knowledge, skills, individual performance and experience. Please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Caterpillar.
Benefits:Subject to plan eligibility, terms, and guidelines. This is a summary list of benefits.
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits*
- Paid time off plan (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, etc.)*
- 401(k) savings plans*
- Health Savings Account (HSA)*
- Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)*
- Health Lifestyle Programs*
- Employee Assistance Program*
- Voluntary Benefits and Employee Discounts*
- Career Development*
- Incentive bonus*
- Disability benefits
- Life Insurance
- Parental leave
- Adoption benefits
- Tuition Reimbursement
* These benefits also apply to part-time employees
Posting Dates:Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the successful completion of a drug screen.
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