Release Operations Engineer, AV Performance Analysis

The Release Operations Engineer is a cross-team integration role on the AV Performance Analysis (Triage) team under the COO organization to deliver capabilities in support of maintaining a high level of system quality and vehicle behavior for our autonomous driving technology. Experience with system and sub-system level verification, release management, regression analysis methodologies, systems and safety product lifecycles with cross-team collaboration across software, testing and project management groups is a must. Different from a traditional Software Quality Assurance (SQA) role, this position uniquely cross-cuts across “testing and operations'' functions on the right half of the systems V-model and “software development, systems and safety engineering'' functions on the left half of the V-model.

The Motional Las Vegas office is located less than 10 miles from the Las Vegas strip at 730 E Pilot Road, the Las Vegas office is home to one of the largest fleets of self-driving vehicles. The city’s grid system of roads and being one of America’s “smart cities” allows for extensive research and development testing.

Essential Duties: 

• Execute on cross-team Triage integration responsibilities, such as reporting on the release performance to the algorithm engineering groups and objectively evaluating the impact of software changes on the vehicle performance
• Drive the day-to-day software release performance narrative. Identify performance regressions and coordinate with Test, Operations, Safety, Engineering teams for an expedited resolution
• Facilitate cross functional engagement for high impact issues identified during the software release lifecycle; including process, technical and operational problems.
• Support coordination, analysis of corrective and continuous regression testing across multiple concurrent software branches. Additionally contribute to building engineering post mortems on organizational blockers for leadership visibility.
• Understand and optimize cross-functional release processes to reduce the risk of major code bugs being hidden in formal software releases
• Consistently develop software release report-cards, weekly summaries while outbriefing such content to cross functional senior management and Triage stakeholders
• Develop documentation such as software release reports and outbrief content to the Triage external stakeholders
• Partner closely with the engineering and operational teams on integrating Motional’s commercial missions into the end-to-end Triage pipeline
• Perform detailed Root Cause Analysis (RCA), Fault Tree Assessment (FTA), Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) on several different test modalities such as -- public roads, closed course, simulation and Hardware-in-Loop (HIL)
• Cultivate and maintain rapport with the software development teams to encourage rapid and iterative feedback loops
• Develop and maintain core internal documentation like process training and lessons learned register to support Triage team
• Other duties as assigned, such as visiting track for new test case execution or supporting analysis of adhoc priority testing with commercial partners

Required Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. The requirements listed below are representative of knowledge, skill and/or ability required.

• Bachelor's or higher degree in Engineering such as Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, Robotics highly preferred; or equivalent knowledge and work experience
• Experience with software release or configuration management in a robotics or a similar field
• Experience with Linux and scripting languages (E.g: Bash/Shell, Python)
• Experience using issue tracking and configuration management tools (E.g: Atlassian Confluence, Jira, Bitbucket, Gitlab)
• Demonstrated problem solving skills and ability to think logically and remove bias from evaluation of problems
• Strong troubleshooting, debugging, and analytical and creative problem solving skills

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with formal regression evaluation and techniques 
• Experience with SQL, Excel, and Google Sheets
• Experience integrating new software capabilities 
• Experience with automotive standards (E.g: ISO 12207, ISO 26262, ISO 21448)
• Experience with software quality management and assurance activities (E.g: IATF 16949, ISO 9001)
• Thorough understanding of robotics systems including sensors, actuators, mechatronics and software systems
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