Sr. Staff Systems Integration Engineer, Release Management, Autonomy

About Rivian

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract.

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.

Role Summary

The Autonomy Systems Integration team is seeking a Senior Staff Systems Integration Engineer to own the technical strategy, coordination, and execution of software releases for Rivian’s Autonomy Driver+ platform.

This role serves as the technical release authority across Perception, Motion Planning, Controls, Localization, Embedded Software, Vehicle Software, Functional Safety, Homologation, Systems Test, and Validation. You will combine systems integration expertise, source-code and change-list analysis, CI/CD and branch-management knowledge, vehicle-log investigation, and HW/SW integration rigor to ensure releases are safe, stable, testable, and ready for deployment across simulation, test vehicles, engineering fleets, and customer fleets.

In addition to owning the release process, this role will lead the Autonomy Release Management function. The position includes technical team leadership and may include direct people-management responsibilities, including mentoring, hiring, performance feedback, career development, and resource planning.

Responsibilities

• Release Strategy & Planning • Define, document, and scale the full lifecycle software release strategy for autonomous vehicle software across development, integration, validation, and fleet deployment stages.
• Establish technical release gates, readiness criteria, and evidence requirements for simulation, test-track, engineering-fleet, and customer-fleet deployments.

• Release Management & Execution • Maintain clear visibility into release scope, branch health, test evidence, known issues, risks, dependencies, and deployment status.
• Lead technical triage and root-cause analysis for critical build failures, regression bugs, integration issues, and release blockers.
• Track complex HW/SW dependencies and critical-path items, driving proactive mitigations and escalation when needed to protect release commitments.
• Lead Release Readiness reviews and drive data-driven Go/No-Go decisions with engineering managers, functional leads, and executive leadership.
• Establish post-release monitoring and feedback mechanisms to identify regressions, customer-impacting issues, and opportunities for process improvement.

• Cross-functional Systems Integration & Test • Coordinate across autonomy development teams (Perception, Planning, Controls, Embedded SW) to enforce a rigorous "Definition of Done" and “Integration Complete” acceptance criteria for all release candidates.
• Build strong working relationships with partner leaders across Autonomy, Vehicle Software, Systems Test, Validation, Functional Safety, Homologation, and Vehicle Operations.
• Deep-dive into vehicle log data, diagnostic traces, test results, and source code to root-cause system-level issues in collaboration with domain experts.
• Partner with Systems Test, Hardware-in-the-Loop, Software-in-the-Loop, and Validation teams to define, maintain, and execute automated regression strategies that protect branch health.

• Processes, Tools, & Communication • Define release health metrics and scorecards, including branch stability, regression pass rate, defect escape rate, time to triage, release predictability, and feature performance.
• Design and implement release tracking standards and automated dashboards using tools such as Jira and GitLab.
• Establish repeatable mechanisms for release scope management, change control, issue prioritization, sign-off tracking, and post-release review.
• Partner with infrastructure and tooling teams to improve CI/CD, build reliability, test automation, log analysis, and release observability.

• Technical Communication & Team Management • Lead the Autonomy Release Management team’s day-to-day execution, priorities, and operations.
• Mentor and develop release and systems integration engineers, providing technical guidance and helping team members grow their autonomy and impact.
• Synthesize complex technical release states into clear, concise status updates for executive leadership, engineering managers, and cross-functional leads.
• Author internal release notes and technical change logs, establishing communication protocols to keep downstream consumer teams informed of build contents, changes, and known issues.

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, systems integration, build/release engineering, or technical program execution, including ownership of releases for complex, multi-component, safety-critical, or highly reliable systems.
• Direct experience in autonomous driving, robotics, or advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), with a deep understanding of vehicle software and HW/SW management across various fleet platforms.
• Technical understanding of the Software Development Life Cycle, CI/CD pipelines, system integration testing strategies, version control (e.g. Git), and software branching strategies (e.g. trunk-based, feature branching, release branches).
• Ability to read and interpret software changes (e.g., reviewing feature change lists, understanding impact of Merge Requests) to identify integration challenges and engage in high-level system architecture discussions.
• Strong communication, negotiation, problem solving, and trade-off decision-making skills, with a demonstrated ability to influence without direct authority across engineering teams and present to executive leadership.
• Experience as a people manager, technical team lead, engineering manager, or equivalent technical leadership role, including hiring, coaching, performance feedback, career development, or resource planning.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency in Python, C++, or Shell scripting in Linux-based embedded environments for release automation, tooling development, and workflow orchestration.
• Hands-on experience with autonomous vehicle platforms, including sensor/compute hardware integration and validation in HiL (Hardware-in-the-Loop) and SiL (Software-in-the-Loop) environments.
• Experience incorporating AI-assisted developer tools to automate release workflows, change log generation, and failure analysis.

Pay Disclosure

The salary range for this role is $265,000-$331,300 for San Francisco Bay Area based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

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