Director, Perception - Autonomous Vehicles

Details

Achieving what has never been accomplished requires foresight, creativity, and the finest talent worldwide. NVIDIA is seeking a driven Director of Perception to help lead the evolution of AI models for autonomous vehicles. In this leadership role, you will drive the development of state-of-the-art deep learning models that enable vehicles to see, understand, and navigate complex environments. You will lead teams developing modern network architectures to deliver a robust, real-time 3D world model.

Responsibilities

• Manage, mentor, and scale a high-performing organization of engineering managers, applied researchers, and software engineers focused on autonomous vehicle perception.
• Guide the strategic direction, design, and execution of modern network architectures, including Transformers, BEV, Occupancy Networks, and Vision-Language-Action models, for multi-sensor fusion using cameras, LiDAR, and radar.
• Oversee the complete machine learning lifecycle, including active learning, data mining, synthetic data generation, model training, performance acceleration, and deployment on NVIDIA DRIVE platforms such as Orin and Thor.
• Partner with leaders across Planning and Control, Mapping, Hardware, and Safety to integrate the perception stack and align on autonomous vehicle system-level metrics.
• Foster a culture of ownership, high-velocity execution, and continuous innovation.
• Ensure algorithms and production code adhere to automotive quality and safety standards, including ISO 26262.

Requirements

• Ph.D. or master's degree in computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence, visual computing, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• At least 10 years of industry experience in deep learning, computer vision, or autonomous robotics, including at least 5 years in a senior leadership role managing large teams or multiple management layers.
• Deep theoretical and practical expertise with modern network architectures, including Transformers, CNNs, and foundation models, as well as complex multi-sensor fusion paradigms.
• Proven experience deploying production-grade, safety-critical machine learning models to edge or embedded computing platforms.
• Strong foundational knowledge of Python, C++, and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.
• Exceptional communication and leadership skills, including the ability to translate complex technical uncertainty into clear strategies for teams and executive leadership.
• A highly motivated, entrepreneurial mindset and the drive to solve challenging problems in autonomous vehicles.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated success shipping autonomous vehicle software to mass production.
• Recognition in the global AI or computer vision community through top-tier publications such as CVPR, ICCV, or NeurIPS, or significant open-source contributions.
• Experience with next-generation paradigms such as end-to-end autonomous driving architectures, Large Vision Models, or sim-to-real transfer techniques.
• Deep understanding of hardware-software co-design, particularly optimization of modern networks for NVIDIA GPU architectures.

Compensation and Benefits

The base salary range is USD 320,000 to USD 488,750 per year. The role also includes eligibility for equity and benefits.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and is an equal opportunity employer. Applications will be accepted at least until March 16, 2026. This posting is for an existing vacancy. NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.