Staff AI Engineer, Enterprise AI

About Us

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders with a clear vision for automotive’s next chapter. From operating systems to zonal controllers to cloud and connectivity solutions, we’re addressing the challenges of electric vehicles through technology that will set the standards for software-defined vehicles around the world.

The road to the future is uncharted. By combining our expertise across connectivity, AI, security and more, we’ll map a new way forward. Working together, we’ll create a future that’s more connected, more intelligent, more sustainable for everyone.

Role Summary

AI is already changing how our engineers write, review, test, and ship software across Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies (RVT). Many useful tools already exist. The next step is to productionize them and make them work across teams, so each win scales across the company. You'll be one of the engineers who builds that work, partnering closely with the team and with engineering leaders across domains to make AI a natural part of how we build.

Responsibilities

• Build reusable AI tooling across agent runtimes, evaluation, skills, plugins, and agentic loops, and help shape the roadmap through the work itself.

• Design and build AI tooling that works with any model, open-source or proprietary, so teams can switch as the model landscape evolves without rebuilding their workflows.

• Put AI to work across the development lifecycle, from code review and testing to triage, in close collaboration with engineering leaders in every domain.

• Lead design reviews and build prioritized AI services and developer tools end to end, owning their reliability, observability, and cost.

• Collaborate across engineering groups to spot shared patterns, reuse components, and stop duplicate work before it starts.

• Build evaluation, guardrails, and monitoring that measure quality, safety, and developer impact across open-source and proprietary models.

• Measure and report the impact of new tooling in terms engineers feel: cycle time, quality, and hours returned from low-value work.

• Make AI workloads fast and affordable, and bring clear build-versus-buy recommendations to the team.

• Build security, privacy, and auditability into every tool, working alongside Security, Compliance, and Audit partners from the start.

• Work with DevEx, IT, and domain teams to shape AI-native development workflows that engineers actually want to use.

• Mentor engineers across levels, and raise the bar on code quality, design, and engineering practices through reviews and pairing.

• Stay at the frontier of AI, especially for software development, and bring the approaches that are production-ready into the platform.

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.

• 8+ years (Staff) or 12+ years (Senior Staff) in software engineering, with a track record of delivering production systems in enterprise environments.

• Hands-on experience building and operating AI-native developer tools, internal platforms, or CI/CD systems in production.

• Hands-on experience with language models and agents, including tool use, context management, and evaluation in production, across both open-source and proprietary models.

• Deep familiarity with the latest developments in AI, especially as they apply to software development, and the judgment to separate what's production-ready from what isn't yet.

• Experience designing abstractions that keep tooling portable across model providers and frameworks.

• Experience collaborating across teams and influencing technical decisions without formal authority.

• Experience mentoring engineers and raising the quality bar through code reviews and design reviews.

• Working knowledge of security, privacy, and auditability for AI-enabled developer tooling.

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with engineering leaders across domains.

Total Rewards

We build the exceptional — and we believe the people doing that work should be rewarded accordingly. In addition to a competitive base salary, full-time positions may be is eligible to participate in our annual company performance bonus program.

Payments are discretionary and not guaranteed; actual amounts depend on company results and the terms of the plan in effect, and require active employment at the time of payout. This role is also eligible for equity in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), subject to board approval and the terms of our equity incentive plans, including applicable vesting requirements.

In addition to our compensation programs, we invest in our people with a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the health, wellbeing, and financial future for full-time employees — including health coverage, retirement savings, time off, and family planning programs. Offerings vary by country. Learn more about our global benefit programs .

External candidates can apply for this role through the Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies careers site ( https://rivianvw.tech/#careers ). If you are a current employee, please apply through our internal job board .

Equal Opportunity

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at candidateaccommodations@rivian.com.