Rivian is seeking a Sr. Staff Machine Learning Engineer to lead the pretraining efforts for their Large Driving Model, which focuses on end-to-end autonomy using multi-sensor driving data. This role involves scaling models, improving pretraining objectives, and developing distributed training systems. The ideal candidate will work at the intersection of large-scale machine learning, autonomous driving, and high-performance distributed training. The position requires collaboration with various teams to connect pretraining progress to real autonomy outcomes.

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience building large-scale ML systems.
• Strong experience training large neural networks with distributed training frameworks.
• Deep understanding of transformers, representation learning, self-supervised learning, or foundation models.
• Strong PyTorch experience, including distributed training, mixed precision, and large-scale training pipelines.
• Strong engineering judgment and ability to lead ambiguous technical efforts from prototype to production impact.

• Lead technical strategy for pretraining large-scale autonomy foundation models.
• Develop pretraining objectives for multi-sensor driving data, including camera, LiDAR, radar, maps, route, and vehicle-state inputs.
• Study scaling trends across model size, data scale, compute, sensor mix, and downstream autonomy performance.
• Build and improve distributed training workflows for large models, including FSDP, mixed precision, checkpointing, and training performance optimization.
• Partner with perception, prediction, planning, simulation, data, and ML infrastructure teams to connect pretraining progress to real autonomy outcomes.
• Develop evaluations that measure representation quality, downstream task performance, and closed-loop behavior.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership on model architecture, training stability, scaling, and evaluation.

• Employees at Rivian are often offered comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) with company match, ESPP and potential RSU grants, performance bonuses, and generous time off including paid parental and sick leave. Perks can include 24/7 mental-health coaching and therapy, Hinge Health for Anthem enrollees, tuition assistance and professional development, plus on-site food and a wide range of employee discounts on items like computers, mobile phones, home loans, and pet care.