Principal Software Systems Engineer (Autonomy Behavior Validation)

Location: Sunnyvale, California, United States

Salary: $238,700–$365,700 per year, plus bonus potential

Company

hirify.global develops automotive products and technologies with a vision of zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.

What you will do

• Set the technical strategy and architecture for counterfactual behavior evaluation and attentive-human benchmarks.
• Convert real incidents and simulation events into executable, repeatable, provenance-preserving scenarios.
• Implement and validate human and other road-user response models, including perception, reaction timing, maneuver selection, and vehicle dynamics.
• Build scalable pipelines for parameter extraction, scene reconstruction, counterfactual swaps, fuzzing, simulation execution, and large-scale analysis.
• Establish validation methods covering replay, closed-course evidence, model limitations, confidence, traceability, and appropriate use of results.
• Lead cross-functional work across Behavior, Simulation, Safety, Human Factors, Legal, Product, and Operations.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in systems engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, robotics, human factors, or a related field.
• At least 10 years of professional experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, vehicle development, simulation, systems engineering, human factors, or safety-critical validation.
• Experience evaluating autonomous vehicles for fleet, launch, supervised-release, or other high-consequence product decisions.
• Deep experience with counterfactual, replay, crash reconstruction, incident analysis, or comparable simulation-based evaluation capabilities.
• Experience with simulation evaluation at scale, scenario generation, parameter sweeps, distributed execution, reproducibility, data quality, and fidelity/runtime/cost trade-offs.
• Strong Python, agentic workflow, communication, and cross-organizational technical leadership skills.

Nice to have

• Experience operationalizing attentive-human benchmarks using naturalistic driving data, human factors research, expert review, or experimentally grounded response models.
• Experience with traffic collision reconstruction, other road-user behavior, collision severity, injury risk, safety cases, or residual-risk decisions.
• Experience validating simulation fidelity against real drives, non-intervened events, closed-course tests, or other independent evidence.
• Experience translating legal or regulatory expectations into defensible reconstruction methods and documented claims.
• Experience developing engineers and leading technical communities.

Culture & Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision insurance options.
• Health Savings Account and Flexible Spending Accounts.
• Retirement savings plan, life insurance, and sickness and accident benefits.
• Paid vacation and holidays, tuition assistance, and employee assistance programs.
• GM vehicle discounts and performance-based incentive compensation.

Hiring process

• Applicants may be required to complete role-related assessments and pre-employment screening where applicable.