Lead Software Engineer – Control

Location: Austin, Texas

About the role

We are seeking a Lead Software Engineer to drive the technical evolution of Avride's core Control System. This role is roughly 80% hands-on engineering and 20% technical leadership — you'll spend most of your time architecting and shipping Model Predictive Control (MPC) systems and vehicle dynamics models yourself, while also setting technical direction and unblocking a small team of 2–3 control engineers.

What you'll do

Hands-on (~80%)

• Architect, implement, and optimize cutting-edge control systems in modern C++ (C++17/20).
• Own the design of high-precision trajectory-tracking solutions, from formulation through production deployment.
• Identify and refine dynamic vehicle parameters using real-world data.
• Profile and optimize algorithms to meet real-time performance constraints.
• Write clean, maintainable, production-quality code and set the technical bar for the codebase.
• Analyze and iterate on system performance using real-world vehicle data.

Leadership (20%)

• Provide technical direction and code/design review for a small team of 2–3 control engineers.
• Break down complex control problems into scoped workstreams and help the team sequence and prioritize them.
• Mentor engineers on MPC, optimization, and controls best practices.
• Act as the primary technical point of contact between Controls and the Planning and Hardware teams, ensuring architectural decisions stay cohesive across systems.
• Drive projects to completion, balancing team velocity with technical rigor.

What you'll need

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of owning significant technical systems end-to-end.
• Expertise in modern C++.
• Deep understanding of algorithms, data structures, and software design patterns.
• Direct experience with optimization, MPC, and system dynamics.
• Hands-on experience with data analysis and statistical methods applied to real-world sensor/vehicle data.
• Demonstrated ability to guide the technical direction of a small team while remaining a strong individual contributor.
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, with a focus on delivering results and driving cross-team alignment.

Nice to have

• Prior experience formally or informally leading a small engineering team or workstream.
• Digital signal processing techniques for analyzing real-world sensor data.
• Advanced knowledge of mathematics, including optimization, probability, and mechanics, and a proven ability to translate complex theory into production-ready algorithms.
• Relevant publications, patents, or achievements in hackathons/programming contests.
• A passion for staying at the forefront of the field, actively seeking and implementing state-of-the-art ideas to push performance beyond the current horizon.