Engineering Director (Autonomous Vehicles)

We are a closely-knit team aspiring to change the world through disruptive technology. We are innovators. We are tinkerers. We are problem-solvers. And we have a fair amount of magic dust up our sleeves. We have a plan for fleet-level deployment of autonomous vehicles, and we are looking for the best-of-the-best to join us in making this a reality.

Based in the U.S. and Asia, Venti Technologies is the leader in safe-speed autonomous logistics systems, developing the future of goods transportation. Using rigorous mathematics, deep learning, and theoretically-grounded algorithms, Venti has a proprietary collection of autonomy technologies including a suite of powerful logistics algorithms. Venti’s proven value proposition of saving costs, increasing vehicle utilization, and improving safety is recognized by customers and driving growth.
Launched in 2018, Venti brings together an unsurpassed team internationally. The company has autonomous systems deployed in Asia for industrial and logistics sites and a growing pipeline. Venti has offices in Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA), Suzhou (China), and Singapore – our Asian headquarters.

• Site Operations Management:

  • Monitor the day-to-day activities of the multiple deployment site teams to ensure proper execution of tasks and workflows.

  • Identify and troubleshoot operational bottlenecks, safety concerns, or equipment malfunctions and implement corrective actions.

  • Ensure vehicles and staff comply with safety protocols mandated by the customer, including attendance of mandatory training, maintaining valid site access passes, and submitting safety documents to support ongoing testing activities such as risk assessment and safe work procedures

  • Manage US sites’ office budgets.

• People and Culture:

  • Foster a positive, productive, and inclusive office culture. Organize team-building events and community engagement.

  • Partner with central HR on local hiring, on boarding, performance reviews, and professional development for the deployment sites’ employees.

• Stakeholder Management and Communication:

  • Act as the representative for the site to our internal company and to our customers.

  • Guide the on-site teams to communicate the site's needs and achievements.

• Technical Contributions

  • Support team members in deployment activities. In lean staffing situations, hands on involvement may be required for managing software validation test branches, troubleshooting on-site problems encounters, with occasional bugfix coding to reduce recovery time.

  • Support team members in technical growth areas. This can include participation in design reviews, code reviews, and provide insights for steering major developments from the engineering team.

  • Identify test cases for growing regression test suite coverage, accompanied by specifications for correct essential behaviors

  • To keep abreast of the current state-of-the-art robotics algorithms

Required experience

• Bachelor’s, Master’s or Ph.D. in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.

• 3+ years of experience in robotics development, including real-world implementation and hands on work with physical robotic vehicles.

• Experience managing small development, deployment or validation teams

• Academic knowledge in a related robotics domain, such as perception, prediction, localization, mapping, planning, control, calibration, or remote operations.

• Experience with simulation testing and testing with a physical autonomous vehicle or robot.

• Flexible problem solver with excellent communication skills

• Flexibility to work across different time zones with an international team.

Bonus experience

• Experience in management of production software releases on a customer-fronting role.

• Strong proficiency in Jira, Zephyr, and the Atlassian suite of tools.

• Extensive experience with Git, Linux, and Docker environments.

• Familiarity with robotics middleware such as ROS/ROS2

• Proficiency in programming languages like C++ and Python, and good OOP coding practice in a Linux environment