Staff Applied Research Scientist Behaviors at Cruise

We're Cruise, a self-driving service designed for the cities we love.
We’re building the world’s most advanced self-driving vehicles to safely connect people to the places, things, and experiences they care about. We believe self-driving vehicles will help save lives, reshape cities, give back time in transit, and restore freedom of movement for many.
In our cars, you’re free to be yourself. It’s the same here at Cruise. We’re creating a culture that values the experiences and contributions of all of the unique individuals who collectively make up Cruise, so that every employee can do their best work.
Cruise is committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment, both in our workplace and in our products. If you are looking to play a part in making a positive impact in the world by advancing the revolutionary work of self-driving cars, come join us. Even if you might not meet every requirement, we strongly encourage you to apply. You might just be the right candidate for us.
The Behaviors Teams at Cruise are responsible for developing machine learning models to enable our AV to drive smoothly and safely around an urban environment. This includes working on a variety of really exciting problems such as:
Building a globally consistent prediction of what all different nearby agents (like other cars, buses, animals, pedestrians) are going to in the next few seconds
Generating safe, comfortable and feasible trajectories to navigate dynamic urban environments
Scoring and selecting the optimal trajectory, optimizing across many dimensions such as safety, comfort and customer experience.
The Behaviors teams work closely with our Perception partners to get data from a variety of sensors, with rich attributes, simulation data, high-fidelity maps, etc, all of which is necessary to build the above technologies. We also collaborate with Robotics and Controls partners to enable the car to follow the planned path accurately.
As a Staff Applied Research Scientist, you drive the research projects that address the everyday challenges that happen on urban roads, ones that do not have standard solutions available. On a day-to-day basis, you will:
What you’ll be doing: 
Formulate problems; initiate and lead technical projects
Explore, prototype, validate, and iterate new algorithms
Support productizing and deploying solutions to robot cars
Considered one of the technical leaders of the department who guides current and future technology choices
Have a deep understanding of the business and operational impact for different technology tradeoffs, and able to balance effectively based on company’s need
Enable others engineers on the team to be more effective through design and code that is easy to extend and contribute into
Capable of influencing others and building consensus even over contentious technical debates
What you must have: 
PhD / MS degree in machine learning or a related field with research publications in top conferences or journals; alternatively equivalent years of industry experience solving ML problems without readily-available solutions
Extensive experience with ML frameworks such as Tensorflow, Caffe, and PyTorch
Extensive experience with machine learning and classification
Strong programming skills in Python or C++
Excellent mathematical reasoning skills, especially with probability
Passionate about self driving car technology and its impact on the world!
Bonus points! 
Experience with ROS, OpenCV, Gazebo, or PCL
Experience with CUDA
Track record in deploying prediction models into real world environments
Experience with autonomous driving technologies
The salary range for this position is $193,900 - 285,000. Compensation will vary depending on location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. You may also be offered a bonus, restricted stock units, and benefits. These ranges are subject to change.
Why Cruise?

Our benefits are here to support the whole you:


Competitive salary and benefits 
401(k) Cruise matching program 
Medical / dental / vision, AD+D and Life
One Medical membership
Subsidized mental health benefits
Flexible vacation and company paid holidays
Healthy meals and snacks provided for non-remote employees
Paid parental, jury duty, bereavement, family care, and medical leave
Fertility Benefits
Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account, subsidized by Cruise
Flexible Spending Account 
Monthly wellness stipend
Pre-tax Commuter Benefit Plan for non-remote employees
CruiseFlex, a working policy for US-Based Cruisers, lets you and your manager find the working style that’s best for you, whether it’s primarily in-person, primarily at home, or a combination of home and in-office time. - learn more about CruiseFlex here


We’re Integrated



Through our partnerships with General Motors and Honda, we are the only self-driving company with fully integrated manufacturing at scale.



We’re Funded


GM, Honda, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart have invested billions in Cruise. Their backing for our technology demonstrates their confidence in our progress, team, and vision and makes us one of the leading autonomous vehicle organizations in the industry. Our deep resources greatly accelerate our operating speed.


We’re Independent


We have our own governance, board of directors, equity, and investors. Our independence allows us to not just work on the edge of technology, but also define it.


We’re Vested


You won’t just own your work here, you’ll have the potential to own equity in Cruise, too. We are competing in a market that is projected to grow exponentially, which gives our company valuation room to grow. We offer a new kind of equity program called Recurring Liquidity Opportunity (RLO), which combines IPO-like liquidity with the stability of remaining private - learn more about RLO here

Cruise LLC is an equal opportunity employer. We strive to create a supportive and inclusive workplace where contributions are valued and celebrated, and our employees thrive by being themselves and are inspired to do the best work of their lives. We seek applicants of all backgrounds and identities, across race, color, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, or disability. Applicants will not be discriminated against based on these or other protected categories or social identities. Cruise will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, in accordance with applicable laws.
Cruise is committed to the full inclusion of all applicants. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process please let our recruiting team know or email HR@getcruise.com.
We proactively work to design hiring processes that promote equity and inclusion while mitigating bias. To help us track the effectiveness and inclusivity of our recruiting efforts, please consider answering the following demographic questions. Answering these questions is entirely voluntary. Your answers to these questions will not be shared with the hiring decision makers and will not impact the hiring decision in any way. Instead, Cruise will use this information not only to comply with any government reporting obligations but also to track our progress toward meeting our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging objectives.
Note to Recruitment Agencies: Cruise does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Furthermore, Cruise does not pay placement fees for candidates submitted by any agency other than its approved partners.