Principal Software Engineer, Vehicle Dynamics Simulation - AV - CA, Santa Clara, United States
$248,000 - $391,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 17 July 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This Principal Software Engineer shapes a production vehicle dynamics simulation framework spanning model fidelity, parameter adaptation, software interfaces, validation, and integration. The role connects planner and controller intent to realistic motion across highway, city, parking, and active-safety scenarios.
What you'll do
- Lead the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for vehicle dynamics simulation across highway, city, parking, active-safety, and low-speed workflows. - Develop production-quality C++ interfaces for simplified, replay-based, and high-fidelity multibody models. - Create scalable model-selection, parameter-identification, adaptation, and validation workflows for diverse vehicle platforms. - Translate trajectory and control commands into time-aligned motion, state, and diagnostic outputs. - Establish model parameters, software boundaries, regression metrics, compatibility practices, and release gates. - Collaborate with planning and controls, parking, active safety, simulation reliability, synthetic data, and product teams.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent experience. - 15+ years of relevant industry experience. - Deep knowledge of longitudinal and lateral vehicle dynamics, tire-road interaction, steering, braking, actuator limits, latency, saturation, kinematic and dynamic bicycle models, multi-degree-of-freedom dynamics, multibody simulation, and tire models including Pacejka Magic Formula, Fiala, FTire, or TMeasy. - Strong C++ skills for production software and Python skills for analysis, validation, data processing, tooling, and test automation. - Demonstrated experience building modular, testable production systems for simulation, computer-aided engineering, robotics, autonomous vehicles, automotive controls, or physics-based software. - Proven ability to calibrate and validate simulation models using measured logs, test-track data, controlled maneuvers, or simulation benchmarks while maintaining deterministic behavior and regression coverage.
Skills: vehicle dynamics simulation, autonomous vehicle, production C++, multibody models, physics-based software
This role has been open 95 days — well above the 61-day median for Systems Software Engineering roles.
Systems Software Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
697
|
Median days open
61 d
|
Median salary
$210k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NVIDIA | All employers we track in this specialty (697 roles · 73 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 136 | 697 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 1004 | 6279 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 42 d | 61 d (−19 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $210k |
Skills observed across this category: vehicle dynamics simulation, autonomous vehicle, production C++, multibody models, physics-based software
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 172 open roles · median 82 d
- NVIDIA (this employer) · 133 open roles · median 42 d
- AMD · 61 open roles · median 50 d
- Mobileye · 25 open roles · median 76 d
- Broadcom · 23 open roles · median 56 d
- Arm Holdings · 20 open roles · median 118 d
How we counted: 697 open Systems Software Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 73 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.