Software Engineer, Pony.ai

Deep Learning

$140-250k

Python
C++
CUDA
Entry, Junior and Mid level
San Francisco Bay Area

Office located in Fremont, CA

Pony.ai

Self-driving technology

Be an early applicant

Pony.ai

Self-driving technology

501-1000 employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceTransportSaaSAutomation

Be an early applicant

$140-250k

Python
C++
CUDA
Entry, Junior and Mid level
San Francisco Bay Area

Office located in Fremont, CA

501-1000 employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceTransportSaaSAutomation

Company mission

Pony.ai's mission is to accelerate the transition to widespread autonomous mobility everywhere.

Role

Who you are

  • Master in Computer Science, or at least 2 years of equivalent industry experience in similar technical fields
  • Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, parallel computing, code optimization and large scale data processing
  • Experience in applied machine learning including data collection and analysis, evaluation and feature engineering
  • Expertise in C++/Python
  • Strong communication skills and team spirit

Desirable

  • PhD in Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Robotics, Natural Language Processing, or similar technical field of study
  • Publications on top-tier conferences like CVPR/ICCV/ECCV/ICLR/ICML/NeurIPS/ICLR/AAAI/IJCV/PAMI
  • Experience in applying ML/DL for behavior prediction, imitation learning, motion planning
  • Experience in deploying deep learning algorithms for real time applications, with limited computing resources
  • Experience in convex optimization, computational geometry or linear algebra
  • Experience in GPU/CUDA/TensorRT

What the job involves

  • Work with experts in the field of self-driving vehicles on software architecture and design, system and module design, evaluation metrics, specification and implementation of test and regression frameworks
  • Design and develop large-scale foundation models trained on vast of real world data
  • Frame the open-ended real-world problems into well-defined ML problems; develop and apply cutting-edge ML approaches (deep learning, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, etc) to these problems; scale them to data pipelines; and streamline them to run in real-time on the cars
  • Develop and deploy deep learning models, including vision language models (VLMs) and Large Language Models (LLMs)
  • Optimize deep learning models to run robustly under tight run-time constraints

Our take

Pony.ai is a driverless vehicle manufacturer and developer based in the US and China. Its bespoke AI driving system is adept at functioning in complex road scenarios using deep learning models and over 1.5 million autonomous miles of testing. Pony.ai has formed partnerships with leading equipment manufacturers, including Toyota, FAW Group and GAC Group.

The two founders are ex-Baidu employees with significant experience in the autonomous driving space. With more than 90% of traffic accidents in the US caused by human error, Pony.ai is looking to improve road safety with intelligent tech. The company is initially focused on taxis and long-distance freight trucks before it rolls the technology out to other vehicle types.

In 2022, Pony.ai became the first and only autonomous driving company to obtain a taxi license in China. It was awarded a permit to operate 100 autonomous vehicles as traditional taxis in Nansha, Guangzhou, highlighting its success so far. While the fleet currently retains safety drivers, the company expects to remove the driver over the short to intermediate time frame.

Although several other autonomous vehicle companies are operating, such as WeRide, Deeproute and AutoX, Pony.ai is well-positioned in terms of financial muscle and its successful multi-location testing. The company plans to significantly expand its hiring, open up a number of new autonomous vehicle global testing and operation sites, progress its strategic partnerships, and rapidly grow its fleet.

Kirsty headshot

Kirsty

Company Specialist

Insights

Top investors

-13% employee growth in 12 months

Company

Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)

Oct 2023

$100m

SERIES D

Feb 2021

$100m

SERIES C

Total funding: $712m

Company benefits

  • 401k plan
  • Work from home opportunities
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • Generous PTO and paid holidays
  • Daily meals and bi-weekly happy hours
  • Equity opportunity

Company values

  • Safety First
  • Tech Obsessed
  • Team Spirit
  • Self-starter

Company HQ

Baylands, Fremont, CA

Leadership

After a PhD at Stanford, James worked for 7 years as a Google Software Engineer. He spent a further 4 years at Baidu USA as Chief Architect of Autonomous Driving before leaving to co-found Pony.ai in December 2016.

Began his career at GoogleX, then he became the youngest T10 engineer at Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Division. Holds a Ph.D. and a B.S. from Tsinghua University.

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