Role Overview

Join Rivian as a Sr. Staff AI Engineer, Enterprise Applied AI in Palo Alto, California, and drive the future of electric adventure vehicles through cutting-edge AI innovation. Rivian is redefining mobility with emissions-free EVs, and we're seeking a hands-on technical leader to build production-grade AI systems that transform operations across manufacturing, supply chain, sales, and more. This senior individual contributor role offers the chance to own complex AI domains, partner with C-suite leaders, and deliver measurable business impact using state-of-the-art generative AI, LLMs, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).

At Rivian, you'll operate at the forefront of enterprise AI, setting technical direction while ensuring scalability, reliability, and security. If you thrive in ambiguous environments, love the outdoors, and want to protect the planet through technology, this is your opportunity to shape Rivian's AI strategy.

Key Responsibilities at Rivian

As a Sr. Staff AI Engineer, you'll lead transformative AI initiatives. Here's what you'll do daily:

• Lead technical design and hands-on development of prioritized AI applications, services, and platforms using LLM app stacks, RAG, evaluation frameworks, and scalable serving infrastructure.
• Define long-term architecture and engineering standards for Applied AI systems to enable reuse, reliability, and impact across Operations, Product, Sales, Finance, HR, and more.
• Partner with business sponsors to translate high-value opportunities into roadmaps, shipped products, and success metrics that drive enterprise outcomes.
• Build holistic AI investment views by collaborating with adjacent teams, aligning patterns, reusing components, and eliminating duplication.
• Drive continuous AI improvement, evaluate emerging capabilities, and deploy them as secure, production-grade systems.
• Collaborate on governance with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Audit, and Security to embed privacy, safety, and reporting practices throughout the AI lifecycle.
• Champion AI adoption via demos, guidance, technical leadership, and org-wide enablement.
• Mentor engineers, conduct design reviews, and elevate code quality, observability, reliability, and cost/performance of AI workloads.
• Establish rigorous evaluation, guardrails, monitoring, offline/online metrics, SLOs, latency, throughput, and cost optimization.
• Guide make/buy decisions and vendor integrations for optimal AI scaling.

Qualifications & Requirements

To succeed in this Rivian AI Engineer role, you need proven expertise:

• Advanced degree: BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Extensive experience: 8+ years (Staff) or 12+ years (Senior Staff) in software engineering with production-ready enterprise systems.
• AI/ML depth: Hands-on building/deploying solutions with language models, retrieval/grounding, embeddings, vector search, and evaluation frameworks.
• Business impact: Demonstrated ability to turn ambiguous problems into robust AI products with quantifiable results.
• Architecture leadership: Experience evolving standards and platforms that leverage across teams.
• Enterprise AI security: Strong familiarity with security, privacy, compliance, safety, and auditability.
• Soft skills: Excellence in communication, stakeholder influence, and cross-functional alignment.
• Learning agility: Proven curiosity to master new technologies through hands-on development.

Rivian values diverse backgrounds united by a passion for innovation and environmental stewardship.

Salary & Benefits

Rivian offers a competitive salary range of $265,000 to $331,300 USD yearly for California-based Sr. Staff AI Engineers, based on experience, skills, and location. Additional perks include:

• Annual performance bonuses
• Equity awards
• Comprehensive health benefits: medical, dental, vision
• Life, short-term, and long-term disability insurance
• Paid vacation and sick leave
• 401(k) Plan
• Family coverage for spouse/partner and children up to 26

This total compensation package positions Rivian as a top employer for AI talent in Palo Alto.

Why Join Rivian?

Rivian isn't just building EVs; we're accelerating the world toward a sustainable future. As a Sr. Staff AI Engineer, you'll work in Palo Alto with a team of curious, courageous innovators challenging the status quo. Enjoy collaborative culture, state-of-the-art tools, and direct impact on adventure vehicles that keep the world wild. Our commitment to outdoors protection aligns with your drive to make a difference. Plus, comprehensive benefits and high-impact projects make Rivian the ideal place for AI leaders seeking growth.

How to Apply

Ready to power Rivian's AI revolution? Apply now for the Sr. Staff AI Engineer role in Palo Alto. Submit your resume highlighting AI production experience, LLM projects, and business impact. Join us to build the future of enterprise AI at an EV pioneer. Positions fill fast—don't miss out!