Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies
Sr. Staff Vehicle Systems Architect
$218K–$300K
Irvine, California · Hybrid · Senior Staff · Full-time · Posted Oct 28, 2026
- Experience
- 12+ years; must include at least one full program cycle owning system- or vehicle-level architecture decisions from concept to production.
- Education
- BS/MS in Electrical, Mechanical, Systems, Aerospace or Computer Engineering, or an equivalent demonstrated record.
About the job
Own vehicle-level mechatronic architecture for a platform program from concept through production, using models and trade studies to guide design decisions and build reusable engineering processes and tooling.
What you'll do
- Lead vehicle architecture decisions, including controllers, function allocation, power distribution, sensors, actuators, packaging and production release.
- Build and validate architecture models; lead trade studies, vehicle-level STPA, reliability analysis and model correlation.
- Set architecture methods and tooling, negotiate decisions across teams, mentor engineers and publish reusable models and requirements.
What they ask for
- 12+ years in automotive, aerospace or electromechanical systems engineering, including at least one full program cycle owning system- or vehicle-level architecture decisions from concept to production.
- Demonstrated first-principles and stack-up modelling used to decide an architecture; fluency across at least two of E/E architecture, vehicle controls SW, thermal and packaging, or mechanical integration.
- Worst-case and tolerance analysis practice (WCCA, Monte Carlo, DOE) applied to real designs.
- Strong Python; comfortable in C++ or Julia/Modelica/Spice; git-native.
Nice to have
- Systems-of-systems and meta-modelling experience, including SysML v2, FMI/FMU co-simulation or parameter management across model hierarchies.
- Hands-on LLM or agentic tooling applied to engineering artifacts, such as pipelines that generate or analyze designs.
Pay
$218.2K – $300.1K (base salary)
Tools
Python, Julia/Modelica, C++, SysML v2, Spice, git, FMI/FMU, Monte Carlo
AI focus
Build AI-assisted pipelines to explore controller allocations, harness topologies and function distributions; preferred experience includes LLM or agentic tooling that generates or analyzes engineering designs.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative