Responsibilities

Own the Vehicle Architecture
Lead the vehicle-level architecture for a platform program: controllers and placement, functional allocation across ECUs, LV/HV distribution concept, sensor and actuator distribution, packaging, temperature/environmental and NVH constraints — from concept through production release.
Lead architecture trade studies with quantified outcomes: cost, mass, range, power, temperature, NVH, complexity, reliability and manufacturability. Derive the cost functions —Trade studies ship with its model, parameters and sensitivity.
Cost-down by subtraction before optimization: use the model to prove which controllers, harness runs, sensors and requirements the vehicle can do without, and remove them before tuning what's left.
Translate ambiguous partner asks into architecture decisions and hold them at program gates; own the architecture decision record and its rationale.
Align architecture to technology roadmaps — evaluating when to adopt new tech, and what it costs the platform.
Close the loop with the physical vehicle: define the correlation and characterization tests that validate the models, and own each model's error budget.
Build the Models and Tooling Behind the Decisions
Curate and decide first: define the design space — what is fixed, what is free, which attributes matter — select the candidate architectures, weigh the trades and make the call. Then build the AI-assisted pipelines that widen the search: proposing controller allocations, harness topologies and function distributions.
Build and own the meta-models that connect the architecture: feature → function → controller → physical interface → software interface, with parameters flowing end to end.
Author first-principles and stack-up models (Python, Julia/Modelica, C++; SysML v2 where it earns its keep) at the fidelity the decision demands. Collaborate with domain systems engineers on correlated models for lock.
Drive reliability by design: top-down from vehicle attributes and bottom-up from component data.

Sr. Staff Vehicle Systems Architect at rivianvw.tech · LumiJobs

Sr. Staff Vehicle Systems Architect

Responsibilities

Qualification

Required

Preferred

Benefits

Company

rivianvw.tech

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