Senior Mapping Engineer - Autonomous Vehicles

Details

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join NVIDIA's Autonomous Vehicle Map Team. The map is the spatio-temporal prior for on-vehicle driving models, enabling autonomous vehicles to continuously improve performance on frequently driven routes. In this role, you will develop and build production-grade on-vehicle map integration solutions that let perception, localization, and planning use SD/HD maps in real time. You may also contribute to cloud mapping pipelines that generate and maintain these maps.

Responsibilities

• Build C++ modules for in-vehicle map connection with perception, localization, and planning systems to enable real-time map consumption and validate map impact on driving performance
• Work with embedded systems and real-time constraints to optimize map parsing, query APIs, and memory management on NVIDIA platforms
• Design and implement map query interfaces that provide low latency for lane geometry, routing graphs, and spatial lookups consumed by autonomous driving software
• Integrate cloud-generated maps with on-vehicle stacks to enable end-to-end validation of map quality and measure driving performance impact
• Develop Python and C++ tools for on-vehicle testing, map data validation, debugging, and performance profiling
• Collaborate with perception, planning, and localization teams to understand requirements, build APIs, and ensure maps are accurately accessed by autonomous driving software
• Support cloud mapping pipelines (Airflow, Python) for map generation, quality detection, and validation workflows as needed

Requirements

• BS or MS degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 8+ years of proven experience developing in-vehicle firmware, time-sensitive platforms, or map-to-vehicle integration for autonomous driving
• Strong C++ programming skills for performance-critical embedded systems, memory optimization, and real-time constraints
• Experience with embedded platforms and real-time operating environments (NVIDIA Orin, Xavier, QNX, or similar)
• Understanding of autonomous vehicle software architectures and how maps are consumed by localization, perception, and planning systems
• Experience debugging and profiling performance on embedded hardware with memory and timing constraints
• Strong Python programming skills for tooling, testing, and automation
• Experience with Protocol Buffers and efficient data serialization for embedded systems
• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to debug complex embedded and real-time systems

Ways to Stand Out

• Extensive experience with SD & HD mapping and deep understanding of map data formats
• Production experience integrating maps with perception, localization, or planning systems in autonomous vehicles
• Expertise in real-time C++ optimization including memory management, cache optimization, lock-free algorithms, and deterministic performance
• Experience with computer vision concepts (3D geometry, point clouds, structure-from-motion) and how they relate to map data
• Experience with Airflow, Docker, Kubernetes and cloud map pipeline development

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary range for Level 4: 184,000 USD - 287,500 USD
• Base salary range for Level 5: 224,000 USD - 356,500 USD
• You will also be eligible for equity and benefits

Additional information

• Applications for this job will be accepted at least until February 19, 2026.
• This posting is for an existing vacancy.
• NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.
• NVIDIA is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse work environment.