Six Figure Work

Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous Driving Simulation

NVIDIA

Company websitenvidia.com (NVIDIA, opens in new tab)

Base salary $152,000  to $287,500

Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in Santa Clara, CA

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  • LocationSanta Clara, CA
  • WorkplaceWorkplace not stated
  • Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
  • Last checked (1 h ago) · observed since

About this job

NVIDIA is seeking a highly motivated Software Engineer to join our Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Simulation team. In this role, you will help build and scale realistic virtual environments that accelerate the training, testing, and validation of NVIDIA’s autonomous driving software stack.

Our mission is to enable large-scale simulation and debugging of AV algorithms across millions of scenarios per day, spanning diverse traffic patterns, road conditions, weather environments, and edge cases. Achieving this requires deep performance optimization and systems-level analysis across the entire software stack — from AV algorithms and AI models to system software, infrastructure, and production-scale simulation workflows.

What you’ll be doing:

  • Develop scalable simulation platforms and workflows for autonomous driving validation and training.

  • Work on Real2Sim and Sim2Real domain adaptation technologies to transform real-world driving incidents into diverse simulation scenarios — and bridge the gap between simulated and real-world behavior.

  • Contribute across a multidisciplinary stack involving: System software and distributed infrastructure, neural graphics & rendering, generative AI & synthetic data generation, computer vision & deep learning, and real-to-synthetic domain adaptation.

  • Optimize large-scale simulation workflows for performance, scalability, reliability, and production deployment.

  • Collaborate closely with researchers, infrastructure engineers, and product teams across NVIDIA.

  • Drive technology transfer into production products and contribute to open-source initiatives where applicable.

What we need to see:

  • BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

  • 5+ years of relevant autonomous vehicles industry experience.

  • Strong programming skills in Python, C/C++, PyTorch, and Linux/bash scripting.

  • Experience with modern software engineering and infrastructure tools such as Docker, Bazel, Jenkins, CI/CD pipelines, and distributed systems tooling.

  • Strong background in computer vision, deep learning, simulation systems, or related domains.

  • Excellent analytical and mathematical problem-solving skills.

  • Ability to independently drive complex projects from concept to production.

  • Strong communication, collaboration, and teamwork skills.

  • Experience in machine learning, large-scale systems, analytics, statistics, or applied mathematics.

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

  • First-author publications at top-tier conferences such as NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, or ICML.

  • Experience in autonomous driving, robotics simulation, neural rendering, synthetic data generation, or generative AI.

  • Proven research or engineering excellence through internships, open-source contributions, code competitions, or impactful production systems.

  • Experience optimizing high-performance or large-scale distributed workloads.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and other objective job-related factors. The expected base salary ranges for this position are:
152,000 USD – 241,500 USD for Level 3; and 184,000 USD – 287,500 USD for Level 4.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until November 3, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy. 

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Source: NVIDIA on Workday · View original posting (opens in new tab)

Pay in context

This role's base floor ($152,000) is above 28% of the 4,198 Software Engineering roles in California listed on this site; 86 others list the same floor. Their median floor is $176,550; the middle half runs from $149,200 to $204,000.

Only jobs on this site count, and each one publishes a base salary of $100,000 or more, so this compares six-figure jobs with each other, not with the whole market. Computed Nov 6, 2026.

This range next to 6 other live NVIDIA roles with the nearest advertised base floor
Chart as a table
This range next to 6 other live NVIDIA roles with the nearest advertised base floor
RolePublished base
Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous Driving Simulation (this listing)$152,000 - $287,500
Senior Networking Architect$152,000 - $287,500
Solutions Architect, AI and ML$152,000 - $287,500
Infrastructure Solutions Architect - OEM$152,000 - $287,500
Senior Software Engineer, CUTLASS Performance$152,000 - $287,500
Senior Software Engineer - Distributed Systems Engineer, EDA Infrastructure$152,000 - $287,500
Senior Graphics Driver Engineer$152,000 - $241,500

Same $100K to $400K scale as every card. All NVIDIA roles · How to read the bar

Observed changes

  1. First observed on the employer's board
  2. Began meeting the published-salary criteria
Observed since
Employer-stated posting date
2026-10-30
Where this pay comes from

Location as the employer wrote it: US, CA, Santa Clara (Levels 3-4 combined)

152,000 USD – 241,500 USD for Level 3; and 184,000 USD – 287,500 USD for Level 4.

Method
Employer text, read with fixed rules and re-verified
Checked
Rule set
us-base-v2

The pay passage appears in the employer's own job text. Fixed, deterministic rules located it, and the passage below was checked against the stored copy of the posting.

What we verified

  • The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
  • The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
  • The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.

We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.