Rivian is quietly building out the engineering team behind its most ambitious technology bet yet, posting job listings for low-voltage electrical systems engineers tasked with designing the hardware architecture for Level 4 autonomous vehicles.
The company is now hiring a Sr. Staff Electrical Systems Integration Engineer to “lead the design of low-voltage electrical systems for Level 4 autonomous vehicles.”
The self-driving focused driving push of the Irvine, California-based EV maker — first noticed by Rivian owner and enthusiast Chris Hilbert — comes two months after founder and CEO RJ Scaringe positioned autonomy as a fundamental long-term differentiator for the business.
The job posting, which calls for engineers to develop “the power architecture, network connectivity, and sensor/actuator systems required to support autonomous driving,” indicates that Rivian is moving beyond its current driver-assistance features and investing directly in the electrical backbone needed for full autonomy.
“Once you get used to not having to drive your car and having the time back, it’s going to be very hard for customers to accept anything less,” Scaringe said in a Dec. 1 interview.
“It’s going to lead to big swings in market share,” he added at the time.
The role spans the entire development cycle from early-stage product development through manufacturing launch, indicating the work is tied to a next-generation vehicle platform rather than a retrofit of existing models.
At the company’s inaugural Autonomy and AI Day held in mid-December in Palo Alto, Scaringe laid out a vision that extends well beyond personally owned vehicles.
The company unveiled its custom-designed Rivian Autonomy Processor, or RAP1, a 5-nanometer chip that will power its third-generation Autonomy Compute Module, capable of processing five billion pixels of sensor data per second.
The system will integrate 11 cameras, five radars and, for the first time, LiDAR.
As reported earlier this month, Rivian has selected the Chinese LiDAR manufacturer RoboSense as its supplier for the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor suite.
However, the EV maker has not confirmed the deal with RoboSense as of Tuesday.
Scaringe said in December that the new advanced driver-assistance system will continue to improve as more miles are driven, through reinforced learning.
He did not disclose a timeframe for full autonomy or a potential robotaxi fleet.
“Now, while our initial focus will be on personally owned vehicles, which today represent a vast majority of the miles in the United States, this also enables us to pursue opportunities in the rideshare space,” Scaringe said during the event.
Rivian has posted several autonomy-related positions in recent months, including roles for tracking engineers in perception, machine learning compiler engineers, systems integration engineers for autonomous driving, and software systems engineers for autonomy.
The positions are based primarily at the company’s Palo Alto office, which serves as the hub for its software stack and vehicle electronics development.
The requirement to “investigate hardware and software issues to identify their root cause” and “develop corrective actions to prevent issue recurrence” points to a mature engineering effort already moving through validation stages.
From Hardware to Software
The company is designing its own silicon, controlling the full software stack and building a recurring revenue layer on top of its vehicles through its Autonomy+ subscription service, priced at $2,500 as a one-time purchase or $49.99 per month.
Rivian‘s roadmap calls for a point-to-point hands-free system later this year, followed by a hands-free, eyes-off product — with the ultimate goal of achieving what the company describes as “personalized autonomy.”
Vidya Rajagopalan, Rivian‘s Senior VP of Electrical Hardware, said during the December event that the Gen 3 autonomy hardware is expected to represent “the most powerful combination of sensors and inference compute in consumer vehicles in North America” when it launches on R2 models in late 2026.
The first R2 vehicles rolling off the assembly line in Normal, Illinois, will still ship with the current Gen 2 hardware.
The Gen 3 system, including RAP1 and LiDAR, was undergoing validation in December.
The Financial Picture
Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough said last week that the 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of negative $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion.
The CFO cited “a step-up in R&D spend as we accelerate investments in our autonomy roadmap and look to deliver LiDAR, our first RAP1 chips, and limited point-to-point functionality for our customers by the end of the year.”
Scaringe described 2025 as a “foundational year” and called 2026 “an inflection point” during the company’s most recent earnings call on Feb. 12.
For 2026, the company is guiding for 62,000 to 67,000 vehicle deliveries, a 47% to 59% increase over 2025, with the R2 crossover — priced at roughly $45,000 — expected to begin customer deliveries in the second quarter.
Scaringe told CNBC the R2 is expected to become the “majority of the volume” of the business by the end of 2027.
Investment
The company guided for $1.95 billion to $2.05 billion in capital expenditures this year covers not only R2 tooling and its Normal, Illinois plant expansion but also the beginnings of vertical construction at the new plant in Georgia.
“We believe autonomy will be a key fundamental long-term differentiator for our business,” Scaringe told analysts during the February earnings call.
As reported earlier on Tuesday, DA Davidson downgraded Rivian shares to Underperform amid skepticism over the R2 ramp up.
Rivian shares were trading 3.3% lower at $17.15 in Tuesday’s session as of press time after closing 26.6% higher at $17.72 on Friday.
