Staff Electrical Systems Engineer

Role Summary

Role is on a nascent team exploring hardware projects supporting and enhancing Rivian’s autonomy goals and ability to overdeliver on automotive capability, reliability and ultimately customer experience. The work is to demonstrate how design and ownership of some infrastructure hardware is a force multiplier for realizing Rivian’s ambitious goals or quickly demonstrating that it is not a path worth pursuing.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with colleagues on exploring hardware proposals, capturing purpose and minimum requirements to vet proof-of-concept designs.
• Find sponsors and present technical cases for funding the exploration of infrastructure hardware supporting autonomy goals.
• Own the System Level Design, including component selection, system architecture definition, and schematic capture/layout.
• Engage adjacent SW, Mechanical, and Thermal teams to ensure cohesive cross-functional ownership and delivery of solutions.
• Lead bring-up, debug, and delivery of POC systems to consumer teams for evaluation while planning for future volume scaling.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related field with 8+ years of industry experience.
• Proficiency with Electrical CAD tools (e.g., Altium, Cadence, or Zuken) for complex schematic capture and PCB layout oversight.
• Strong background in system architecture design, component selection, and high-speed digital or power electronics design.
• Experience driving hardware projects from concept through validation in a fast-paced R&D or nascent product environment.
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills to collaborate with software, mechanical, and thermal engineering teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior experience with sensor fusion
• Prior experience with AI hardware accelerators
• Familiarity with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing
• Familiarity with Data Center Infrastructure

Pay Disclosure

The salary range for this role is $167,000-$209,000 for Palo Alto, CA-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. The successful candidate may be eligible for an annual performance bonus and equity awards.   We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits, including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian’s 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com.