General Motors

Systems Engineering Manager - Autonomy Behavior

General Motors • $189K — $290K *
Sunnyvale, CA 94087In-Person
Transportation
8 - 10 years of experience
Today
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Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Master's degree in a relevant engineering or computer science field.
  • 8+ years of professional experience in systems engineering or related fields for autonomous vehicles.
  • Proven experience evaluating autonomous vehicles within commercial fleets or high-consequence products.
  • Strong foundation in systems engineering fundamentals and validation techniques.
  • Proficiency in Python and experience with analysis or validation software.
  • Demonstrated ability to facilitate collaboration across diverse teams and stakeholders.
  • Experience managing and developing engineering teams, fostering an inclusive culture.

Responsibilities

  • Lead and mentor a team of engineers, ensuring high standards of performance and communication.
  • Establish systems engineering and validation direction for critical capabilities.
  • Guide development of comprehensive behavior evaluation and simulation systems.
  • Work collaboratively with cross-functional teams to align on technical objectives and recommendations.
  • Define and connect requirements to simulation and release evidence ensuring reliability in products.

Benefits

  • Participation in a company vehicle evaluation program with access to General Motors vehicles.
  • Potential for relocation assistance based on qualifications and needs.
  • Opportunities for career growth and professional development within a high-impact team.
Full Job Description
Job Description

Work Arrangement:
This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Sunnyvale, CA three times per week at minimum or other frequency dictated by the business.

The Role

As a Manager of Autonomy Behavior Systems Engineering, you will lead a team responsible for how autonomous vehicle behavior is specified, evaluated, and supported by evidence. You will set technical direction while creating the conditions for engineers to do their best work across behavior, software, simulation, safety, legal, product, and operations.

You will bring deep experience evaluating autonomous vehicles in commercial fleets and understand the difference between a test that produces a result and a validation system people can trust. You will help define the systems engineering approach, connect requirements to simulation and release evidence, and ensure the team delivers methods and products that support developers, release decisions, and launch decisions.

What You'll Do
  • Lead and develop a team of autonomy behavior systems engineers, setting expectations for technical quality, execution, communication, and growth.
  • Set the systems engineering and validation direction for major capabilities and cross-cutting behaviors, connecting requirements, coverage, simulation validity, metrics, acceptance criteria, and release evidence.
  • Guide the development of scalable behavior evaluation and simulation systems across synthetic tests, road data, and counterfactual references, including scenario sourcing, orchestration, data quality, and reproducibility.
  • Partner across Engineering, Safety, Legal, Product, and Operations to resolve ambiguity, build alignment, and communicate clear recommendations for engineering, release, and launch decisions.


Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)
  • Master's degree in systems engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, robotics, or a related field.
  • 8 or more years of professional experience in systems engineering, autonomous vehicles, robotics, vehicle development, simulation, or safety-critical validation.
  • A proven record of evaluating autonomous vehicles for a commercial fleet, launch, supervised release, or other high-consequence product decision.
  • Deep systems engineering fundamentals, including architecture and decomposition, use-case and scene modeling, requirements strategy, interface definition, verification and validation planning, and traceability.
  • Professional experience defining or leading simulation evaluation at scale, including the trade-offs between coverage, confidence, runtime, cost, and simulation validity.
  • Strong Python experience. You should be comfortable reviewing production-quality analysis or validation software and understanding how tools and data pipelines support engineering decisions.
  • Strong communication skills and the ability to create alignment among teams with different goals, terminology, and technical perspectives.
  • Demonstrated stakeholder management and technical leadership across organizational boundaries. You have led work through influence, not only through formal authority.
  • Experience as a Tech Lead, Technical Lead Manager, or people manager responsible for delivering complex technical work through a team.
  • A track record of developing engineers, giving clear feedback, supporting career growth, and building an inclusive, accountable team culture.


What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred

Qualifications)
  • Human benchmarking for behavior and safety evaluation, including attentive human benchmark construction, human percentile methods, expert review, and the limits of human references.
  • Experience with hazard analysis, including structured hazard analysis, scenario-based hazard analysis, failure analysis, or similar methods.
  • Experience building or using a safety case, writing or reviewing safety claims, and determining what validation evidence is needed to support those claims.
  • Experience with risk quantification, risk acceptance, severity and exposure reasoning, risk budgets, and mitigation decisions.
  • Experience turning legal or regulatory expectations into a defensible compliance strategy with requirements, metrics, test coverage, and documented claims.
  • Experience designing validation lifecycles that connect scope definition, requirements, hazard analysis, coverage planning, test generation, scorecards, release decisions, and continuous monitoring.
  • Experience hiring, organizing, and prioritizing a technical team through changing product and program needs.


Compensation: The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of the California Bay Area.
  • The salary range for this role is ($189,300 - $290,000). The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
  • Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.


Company Vehicle: Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.

This Job may be eligible for relocation benefits.

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About General Motors

General Motors Company engages in the manufacture and sale of cars and trucks in the United States, China, Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy. It offers sedans, crossovers, sport utility vehicles, pick-up trucks, coupes, sports/convertibles and hybrid vehicles, hatchbacks/wagons, and vans, as well as mini cars in India. The company also provides parts and accessories, such as iPod and MP3 compatibility, mobility accessories, performance parts, AC parts and services, and merchandise. In addition, it offers vehicle safety, security, and information services. The company provides used vehicles. It offers its products through dealers and distributors. General Motors Company was formerly known as NGMCO, Inc. and changed its name to General Motors Company in July 2009. The company was incorporated in 2009 and is based in Detroit, Michigan. It operates manufacturing facilities in India, the United States, and Canada. General Motors Company operates as a subsidiary of the United States Department of The Treasury. General Motors led global vehicle sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007, longer than any other automaker, and is currently among the world's largest automakers by vehicle unit sales. General Motors acts in most countries outside the USA via wholly-owned subsidiaries but operates in China through 10 joint ventures. GM's OnStar subsidiary provides vehicle safety, security, and information services. In 2009, General Motors shed several brands, closing Saturn, Pontiac, and Hummer, and emerged from a government-backed Chapter 11 reorganization. In 2010, GM made an initial public offering IPOs to date and returned to profitability later that year.

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Join the dynamic team at General Motors, a global leader in automotive innovation and technology. At General Motors, we offer unparalleled job opportunities that propel your career forward while contributing to a legacy of engineering excellence.

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Start your career journey with a General Motors internship, where you can apply your academic knowledge to real-world projects. Our internships provide a robust foundation in the automotive industry, with mentorship from experienced leaders. Full-time employees enjoy a wealth of benefits, including comprehensive health care, retirement plans, and performance bonuses, ensuring that your hard work is rewarded.

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Learn more about General Motors
Size
157,000 employees
Market Cap
$46.9 billion
Industry
Manufacturing & Automotive
Net Income
$6.4 billion
Founded
1908
5 Year Trend
-3.2%
Revenue
$122.4 billion
NASDAQ
GM
* Ladders Estimates

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