Principal AV Behavior Safety Engineering Lead

General Motors develops automated-driving products focused on safety and trusted autonomous vehicle technologies. The Principal AV Behavior Safety Engineering Lead will define and lead safety strategies for SAE Level 3–4 automated driving systems powered by machine-learned models, including safety-case development, behavior validation, performance assessment, and launch-readiness assurance.

Responsibilities:

• Reference and interpret standards such as ISO 21448 (SOTIF), ISO 5083, and AVSC best practices to define GM’s strategy for safe autonomous system development, validation and deployment
• Own safety strategy for next generation ADS architectures
• Own the behavior-focused portion of the ADS Safety Case, including key claims, sufficiency criteria, and recommended evidence for AV behavior safety performance
• Collaborate with Software Validation, Embodied AI, Simulation, and Safety Metrics teams to define the end-to-end AV behavior validation methodology for AI-driven systems
• Set the strategy for how we systematically break down ODDs and how performance is validated per behavior and in aggregate
• Collaborate on evaluation metrics, human benchmarks, and safety launch targets for AV behaviors and overall system performance. This includes supporting development of safety performance indicators (SPIs) for AV behaviors
• Assess AV performance across safety and reliability dimensions using simulation, closed-course, and public-road data and provide clear, prioritized feedback to engineering teams
• Define and run an assurance process to verify the sufficiency criteria and safety targets to support launch readiness

Requirements:

• • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
• • 8+ years of experience in machine learning, engineering, data science, or a related field
• • 8+ years in autonomous vehicle or robotics development or related field
• • Demonstrated experience working on production-intent AV programs
• • Track record providing technical safety leadership in AV development (e.g., defining safety strategies, risk assessments, validation methodologies, safety case contributions)
• • Deep understanding of AV behavior development: defining ODDs, behaviors, and evaluation criteria; analyzing simulation, closed-course, and public-road test data; and generating prioritized, actionable recommendations for developers
• • Experience applying AV safety standards and best practices, such as ISO 5083, ISO 21448 (SOTIF), and AVSC practices
• • Excellent communication and storytelling skills, including the ability to explain complex technical tradeoffs to executives and non-technical stakeholders
• • Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams (Software, AI/ML, Systems Engineering, Product, Program Management, Operations) without direct authority
• • Strong problem-solving mindset, comfort with ambiguity, and a proactive attitude toward learning and continuous improvement
• This role is categorized as remote. This means the selected candidate may be based anywhere in the country of work and is not expected to report to a GM worksite unless directed by their manager
• The selected candidate will be required to travel <25% for this role
• • Masters Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or related field
• • Programming & Frameworks: Python, R, Java, PySpark, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Scikit-learn, LangChain, SQL
• • Machine Learning & AI: Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative AI, RAG, Deep learning, Reinforcement Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), SVM, XGBoost, Random Forest, Decision Trees, Clustering
• • Cloud & Big Data Platforms: (PreferredMicrosoft Azure (Data Lake, Machine Learning, Databricks)), Nice to Have (AWS (S3, SageMaker, Bedrock) or Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery, Dataflow, AI Platform) )
• • Deployment & MLOps: MLflow, Model Monitoring & Versioning, Docker & Kubernetes, GitHub, Jira
• • Data Analysis & Visualization: Tableau, PowerBI, Pandas, NumPy