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Systems Engineering Manager - Autonomy Behavior

General Motors · Sunnyvale, CA

Level
Manager
Team
Manufacturing
Base pay
$189k–$290k
Degree
Required
Industry
Automotive
Posted
30+ days ago

The role in 30 seconds

A management manufacturing role at General Motors (automotive) in Sunnyvale, CA. A proven record of evaluating autonomous vehicles for a commercial fleet, launch, supervised release, or other high-consequence product decision.

They ask for
degree required
Tools it names
Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ), Robotics
Base pay
$189k–$290k

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026

Manufacturing Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $115k–$169k. This one lists $189k–$290k.

Median of the low and high ends of 126 live postings that list pay, out of 346 manufacturing engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 345 other live manufacturing postings in California.

Base pay
About 78% above similar roles

Typical $111k–$159k, from 112 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
Not stated

Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • Tooling 51%
  • ✓ New product launch 49%
  • Root cause 39%
  • Automation 36%
  • CATIA / NX 27%
  • Machining 27%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

Stands out: this posting asks for Python, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.

At a glance

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Manufacturing team at General Motors

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • Is the work mostly new product launches or sustaining existing lines?
    • How much time do you spend on the floor versus at a desk?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

Full description from General MotorsAs posted on their careers site.Show

The Role

As a Manager of Autonomy Behavior Systems Engineering, you will lead a team responsible for how autonomous vehicle behavior is specified, evaluated, and supported by evidence. You will set technical direction while creating the conditions for engineers to do their best work across behavior, software, simulation, safety, legal, product, and operations.

You will bring deep experience evaluating autonomous vehicles in commercial fleets and understand the difference between a test that produces a result and a validation system people can trust. You will help define the systems engineering approach, connect

requirements

to simulation and release evidence, and ensure the team delivers methods and products that support developers, release decisions, and launch decisions.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

  • ✓Master’s degree in systems engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, robotics, or a related field.
  • ✓8 or more years of professional experience in systems engineering, autonomous vehicles, robotics, vehicle development, simulation, or safety-critical validation.
  • ✓A proven record of evaluating autonomous vehicles for a commercial fleet, launch, supervised release, or other high-consequence product decision.
  • ✓Deep systems engineering fundamentals, including architecture and decomposition, use-case and scene modeling,

requirements

strategy, interface definition, verification and validation planning, and traceability.

  • ✓Professional experience defining or leading simulation evaluation at scale, including the trade-offs between coverage, confidence, runtime, cost, and simulation validity.
  • ✓Strong Python experience. You should be comfortable reviewing production-quality analysis or validation software and understanding how tools and data pipelines support engineering decisions.
  • ✓Strong communication skills and the ability to create alignment among teams with different goals, terminology, and technical perspectives.
  • ✓Demonstrated stakeholder management and technical leadership across organizational boundaries. You have led work through influence, not only through formal authority.
  • ✓Experience as a Tech Lead, Technical Lead Manager, or people manager responsible for delivering complex technical work through a team.
  • ✓A track record of developing engineers, giving clear feedback, supporting career growth, and building an inclusive, accountable team culture.

Qualifications)

  • ✓Human benchmarking for behavior and safety evaluation, including attentive human benchmark construction, human percentile methods, expert review, and the limits of human references.
  • ✓Experience with hazard analysis, including structured hazard analysis, scenario-based hazard analysis, failure analysis, or similar methods.
  • ✓Experience building or using a safety case, writing or reviewing safety claims, and determining what validation evidence is needed to support those claims.
  • ✓Experience with risk quantification, risk acceptance, severity and exposure reasoning, risk budgets, and mitigation decisions.
  • ✓Experience turning legal or regulatory expectations into a defensible compliance strategy with requirements, metrics, test coverage, and documented claims.
  • ✓Experience designing validation lifecycles that connect scope definition, requirements, hazard analysis, coverage planning, test generation, scorecards, release decisions, and continuous monitoring.
  • ✓Experience hiring, organizing, and prioritizing a technical team through changing product and program needs.
  • ✓The salary range for this role is ($189,300 - $290,000). The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
  • ✓Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.

Company Vehicle : Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.

This Job may be eligible for relocation benefits.

This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least 3 times a week {or other frequency dictated by their manager}.

The selected candidate

Show full description ↓

Job Description

Work Arrangement

This role is categorized as Remote/ hybrid . Remote: This role is based remotely but if you live within a 50-mile radius of [Austin, Detroit, Warren, Milford, Sunnyvale, CA ], you are expected to report to that location three times per week, at minimum.

What You’ll Do

  • •Lead and develop a team of autonomy behavior systems engineers, setting expectations for technical quality, execution, communication, and growth.
  • •Set the systems engineering and validation direction for major capabilities and cross-cutting behaviors, connecting requirements, coverage, simulation validity, metrics, acceptance criteria, and release evidence.
  • •Guide the development of scalable behavior evaluation and simulation systems across synthetic tests, road data, and counterfactual references, including scenario sourcing, orchestration, data quality, and reproducibility.
  • •Partner across Engineering, Safety, Legal, Product, and Operations to resolve ambiguity, build alignment, and communicate clear recommendations for engineering, release, and launch decisions.

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