Senior Deep Reinforcement Learning Engineer - Autonomous Driving - CA, Santa Clara, United States
$224,000 - $356,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 27 August 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role focuses on building and implementing Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms for autonomous vehicle decision-making and planning.
What you'll do
- Build and implement Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms for autonomous vehicle decision-making and planning.
- Develop and maintain scalable training pipelines and simulation environments for RL training.
- Collaborate with perception and planning teams to integrate RL models into the unified autonomous driving stack.
- Benchmark RL model performance against imitation learning baselines in complex urban environments.
- Optimize and deploy RL models to production-grade automotive hardware.
What you'll need
- BS or higher in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
- 12+ years of experience in the related field.
- Solid background in Reinforcement Learning, including policy gradient methods (PPO, GRPO), actor-critic architectures, on-policy and off-policy RL.
- Proficiency in PyTorch or TensorFlow and real experience with RL-related algorithm.
- Experience in C++ and Python development for real-time systems.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a track record of implementing and debugging complex RL systems.
Skills: Deep Reinforcement Learning, autonomous vehicle, self-driving technology, RL models, automotive hardware
This role has been open 26 days — well below the 68-day median for AI/ML Hardware Engineering roles.
AI/ML Hardware Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
514
|
Median days open
68 d
|
Median salary
$232k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NVIDIA | All employers we track in this specialty (514 roles · 75 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 87 | 514 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 1001 | 5948 · 143 employers |
| Median days open | 69 d | 68 d (+1 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $232k |
Skills observed across this category: Deep Reinforcement Learning, autonomous vehicle, self-driving technology, RL models, automotive hardware
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 106 open roles · median 101 d
- NVIDIA (this employer) · 84 open roles · median 63 d
- AMD · 46 open roles · median 61 d
- Micron Technology · 33 open roles · median 43 d
- Mobileye · 21 open roles · median 57 d
- Analog Devices · 14 open roles · median 26 d
How we counted: 514 open AI/ML Hardware Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 75 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 23 Sept 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.