Software Engineer (SDS Core - Evaluation)

Department: Self-Driving Systems

Location: Sunnyvale

Compensation: $125K – $222K

Employment Type: FullTime

Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems, and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co.

We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that full-time employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments. This in-office expectation does not apply to contractor positions

About the role

SDS Evaluation owns how Applied Intuition measures the performance of its autonomy stacks. You'll build the datasets, metrics, and visualizations that tell perception, prediction, and planning developers whether a change improved the stack, where it remains weak, and what to work on next — the signal teams use to steer development and that leadership uses to judge release readiness.

This role sits at the intersection of autonomy engineering and measurement. You'll work closely with stack developers to turn their open questions into rigorous metrics, drawing on both real road data and novel synthetic scenario generation to evaluate behaviors too rare or too dangerous to encounter on the road. You'll also improve the evaluation infrastructure itself, making runs fast, reliable, and easy to interpret.

At Applied Intuition, you will:

• Define and own metrics for one or more autonomy behavior areas, from requirements through implementation

• Build and curate the datasets — real and synthetic — that those metrics run against

• Design visualizations and reporting that make progressions and regressions obvious at a glance

• Partner with perception, prediction, and planning teams to turn their open questions into measurable signal

• Improve evaluation infrastructure: trigger paths, run time, reliability, and result presentation

• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to defining best practices for data-centric development

We're looking for someone who has:

• Master’s, PhD, or equivalent work experience in Engineering such as Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering

• 3–5 years of experience in software or data infrastructure engineering

• Expertise in building and scaling data pipelines, distributed systems, or ML infrastructure.

• Proficiency in Python and strong knowledge of data frameworks (Spark, Airflow, Kafka, etc.)

• Experience working with large-scale datasets and understanding data-driven development cycles

• Familiarity with machine learning workflows or model training/deployment, especially automation of those processes

• Strong systems thinking and ability to work across multiple parts of the stack (data, infra, and ML)

• Interest in seeing the direct impact of your infrastructure work on how vehicles perform and improve

• Ability to move fast, learn quickly, and mentor others while growing with the team

Nice to have:

• Experience with automotive (AV) or robotics systems

• Experience with highly automated ML training workflows

• Prior contributions to systems that connect data-driven model iteration loops (“data flywheel”)

Compensation at Applied Intuition for eligible roles includes base salary, equity, and benefits. Base salary is a single component of the total compensation package, which may also include equity in the form of options and/or restricted stock units, comprehensive health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance coverage, 401k retirement benefits with employer match, learning and wellness stipends, and paid time off. Note that benefits are subject to change and may vary based on jurisdiction of employment.

Applied Intuition pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum intended target base salary for new hire salaries for the position. The actual base salary offered to a successful candidate will additionally be influenced by a variety of factors including experience, credentials & certifications, educational attainment, skill level requirements, interview performance, and the level and scope of the position.

Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Applied Intuition is an equal opportunity employer and federal contractor or subcontractor. Consequently, the parties agree that, as applicable, they will abide by the requirements of 41 CFR 60-1.4(a), 41 CFR 60-300.5(a) and 41 CFR 60-741.5(a) and that these laws are incorporated herein by reference. These regulations prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals based on their status as protected veterans or individuals with disabilities, and prohibit discrimination against all individuals based on their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. These regulations require that covered prime contractors and subcontractors take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment individuals without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status or disability. The parties also agree that, as applicable, they will abide by the requirements of Executive Order 13496 (29 CFR Part 471, Appendix A to Subpart A), relating to the notice of employee rights under federal labor laws.

FOR US-BASED ROLES: Applied Intuition is committed to providing an accessible and inclusive application and interview experience to applicants who are disabled veterans and other applicants with disabilities or medical conditions. Reasonable accommodations are available, requesting an accommodation will not affect your candidacy in any way, and you are not required to disclose the nature of your disability or medical condition in order to make a request. If you require an accommodation please contact careers@applied.co. We will work with you!