Head of Systems Engineering Senior Director

Join Nuro, a leader in autonomous driving technology, as the Head of Systems Engineering. In this critical role, you will own the end-to-end systems engineering function, connecting product, functional, and safety goals into one coherent system strategy. You will define the systems engineering strategy required to support Nuro's growth, translate product goals into system requirements, and drive the system-level safety case. This is a technical leadership role for someone passionate about turning frontier autonomous driving technology into a durable commercial product.

• Own and scale Nuro’s Systems Engineering function across autonomy, hardware, safety case, requirements, validation, system performance, technical risk, and deployment readiness.
• Define the systems engineering strategy required to support Nuro’s next phase of growth across multiple cities, vehicle platforms, commercial partnerships, and future international markets.
• Drive the system-level safety case in collaboration with Autonomy, Hardware, Legal, Product, and Operations, ensuring the safety argument is rigorous, evidence-based, and tied to commercial deployment milestones.
• You are a senior technical leader who wants to solve one of the hardest and most important problems in autonomous driving: turning a complex AI, software, hardware, and safety-critical system into a product that can scale in the real world
• You are not just a process owner. You are a technical owner. You bring structure, rigor, judgment, and urgency to complex engineering systems, and you know how to drive a high-performing engineering organization to execute fast without losing technical discipline
• You are energized by complexity. You can operate from first principles, connect deep technical details to company-level deployment decisions, and make high-quality tradeoffs with imperfect information
• 10+ years of systems engineering experience in a related field (e.g. automotive, aerospace, defense, robotics, medical devices, or another safety-critical domain), including 7+ years managing managers and scaling high-performing engineering organizations
• A track record of developing senior technical leaders, recruiting exceptional talent, and building teams that operate with high standards and high ownership
• Experience leading systems engineering or equivalent technical functions across complex hardware and software products, including ownership of safety-critical system development (safety case, hazard analysis, risk assessment, validation evidence, and deployment readiness)
• Excellent communication skills, able to make complex technical tradeoffs clear to engineering teams, executives, and cross-functional stakeholders
• Experience with modern autonomy stacks (perception, prediction, planning, localization, mapping, sensing, compute, vehicle integration) and the validation challenges specific to ML-based and end-to-end AI systems in real-world environments
• Experience with vehicle platforms, embedded systems, automotive-grade hardware, compute systems, sensor integration, or hardware/software co-design
• Experience building V&V strategies for public-road or regulated environments — spanning simulation, scenario-based testing, closed-course validation, operational readiness reviews, and launch decision frameworks