Senior Software Engineer, AI (Large-Language-Models)

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract. 

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations. 

The role will focus on enhancing the execution efficiency of AI pipelines for employee-used AI applications. This role involves optimizing system performance across Rivian AI and AI runtimes through advanced profiling, algorithmic improvements, pipeline optimization, and hardware-software co-optimization. 

• Model & pipeline design – Fine-tune and evaluate GPT-style models on Rivian’s secure GPU clusters; implement RAG, function-calling and tool-use chains for engineering math libraries (NumPy, OpenFOAM, ANSYS APIs).
• Systems engineering – Architect micro-services in Python/Go, expose gRPC/REST endpoints, and author Terraform modules to spin up reproducible environments.
• Algorithmic accuracy & safety – Develop automatic unit-tests and guardrails for dimensional-analysis sanity, physical-law consistency and PII compliance
• Cross-functional collaboration – Pair with design, quality, and factory-automation teams to harvest domain data, craft prompts and validate results.
• Observability & performance – Instrument Prometheus/Grafana dashboards, load-test with Locust, and implement vector-DB sharding strategies to keep P99 latency <300 ms at 2 k QPS.

• B.S. in CS, EE, ME, Applied Math or similar.
• 6 + years building and deploying production software; at least 2 years with modern LLM stacks (OpenAI, Llama-v3, Mistral, etc.).
• Strong Python (asyncio, FastAPI), C#, C++, Go, RUST Knowledge.
• Proven experience integrating computational-engineering libraries or solvers.

• LangChain, LlamaIndex, or custom RAG architecture design.
• Knowledge of automotive or aerospace design standards (GD&T, DFMEA) is preferred.
• GPU tuning (CUDA, Triton) and distributed-training know-how.
• Hands-on experience with profiling tools and techniques for AI workloads.

Salary Range for Illinois Based Applicants: $136,000-$170,000 (actual compensation will be determined based on experience, location, and other factors permitted by law).

Benefits Summary: Rivian provides robust medical/Rx, dental and vision insurance packages for full-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26. Coverage is effective on the first day of employment, and Rivian covers most of the premium

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian 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.

Candidate Data Privacy

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law. 

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services. 

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.  

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.