Director of Application Software, US (Autonomous Driving AI)

Location: Hybrid role based in Detroit, Michigan, or Sunnyvale, California, USA, combining office and workshop collaboration with remote work.

Salary: $490,000–$600,000 annually, plus equity.

Company

hirify.global builds an end-to-end AI platform for autonomous driving, enabling vehicles to learn from real-world experience and deploy across global OEM partners and vehicle platforms.

What you will do

• Lead and grow the US Application Software organisation and develop senior engineers, technical leaders, and engineering managers.
• Own the application of core AI and autonomous driving technology to customer vehicle programmes from technical definition through integration, validation, release, and production.
• Guide delivery of ADAS and autonomous driving capabilities across machine learning, autonomy, vehicle systems, and application software.
• Provide technical and architectural leadership across autonomous driving, ML-enabled systems, embedded software, vehicle integration, and deployment.
• Build technical partnerships with AI, autonomy, safety, validation, release, systems engineering, and OEM teams.
• Turn customer-programme learning into reusable components, engineering practices, and scalable integration approaches.

Requirements

• Significant engineering and leadership experience in autonomous driving, ADAS, automotive AI, OEM, or related vehicle technologies.
• Strong understanding of autonomous driving and machine learning, including development, integration, validation, and deployment in vehicles.
• Experience taking driving features or capabilities from development toward production with technical ownership across autonomy, ML, and vehicle integration.
• Experience delivering complex software or AI-enabled systems in production automotive programmes, with knowledge of vehicle systems, embedded platforms, and integration constraints.
• Experience building multidisciplinary engineering teams and developing senior technical leaders or managers.
• Strong technical judgement and communication skills for working across disciplines and with OEM customers and technical partners.

Nice to have

• Experience developing or deploying end-to-end learned driving systems, including model training, adaptation, tuning, or deployment.
• Familiarity with C++, Linux, QNX, or Adaptive AUTOSAR.
• Familiarity with ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, UN R155/156, or A-SPICE.
• Experience across multiple vehicle platforms or OEM programmes and creating reusable technical approaches.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid working with time in offices, workshops, and labs alongside focused remote work.
• Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable.
• Equity participation and annually benchmarked salaries.
• Learning and development budgets for training, conferences, and professional growth.
• Health, dental, retirement or pension, enhanced parental leave, therapy access, wellbeing partnerships, and team socials, depending on location.