Senior Release Engineer

Mission Summary: As a Release Engineer at Motional, you will join the newly formed Release team, responsible for creating our customer-facing external software releases. You will be responsible for executing the technical vision for our software release and validation infrastructure. In this role, you will work hands-on to build, maintain, and automate the pipelines that ensure the safety and reliability of software deployed across our autonomous vehicle fleet. You will be instrumental in translating strategic release goals into efficient, scalable engineering workflows. What You’ll Be Doing: Release Gating & Validation: Collaborate with the Release team to implement and enforce “shift-left” quality gates, ensuring that only stable, well-validated code reaches release branches. Cross-Functional Support: Partner with Autonomy, System Readiness & Performance, and Project Manager teams to streamline the integration of patches and bug fixes, acting as the primary point of contact for release-related build inquiries. Branching & Governance: Assist in executing the organization’s release strategy (e.g., maintaining clean branching models) to ensure release isolation and stability. Data-Driven Optimization: Contribute to the visibility of release metrics, identifying bottlenecks in the build process and proposing data-backed solutions to improve release team and developer velocity. Automation & Tooling: Write and maintain automation scripts to enforce release quality, minimize manual overhead, and manage build compatibility across diverse autonomy stacks. What We’re Looking For: Engineering Foundation: BS or MS in Engineering or equivalent knowledge and work experience. Technical Proficiency: Strong proficiency in Git, Python; advanced experience with CI/CD infrastructure (e.g., GitLab CI, Jenkins). Domain Knowledge: Experience in the autonomous driving sector, robotics, or complex software release environments. Collaborative Problem-Solver: Demonstrated ability to work within a highly technical team, translate complex requirements into actionable code, and communicate effectively with cross-functional stakeholders. Operational Mindset: A focus on building maintainable, “production-ready” systems and a desire to improve engineering workflows rather than just patching issues. Bonus Points: Experience with Cloud Simulation scaling and AWS application environments. Experience with Apache Airflow or similar workflow orchestration tools. Experience with simulation-based validation frameworks (e.g., Applied Intuition). We encourage a hybrid schedule with in-office time at one of our locations in Boston, Pittsburgh, or Las Vegas to support collaboration, or this role can be fully remote. #LI-AE1 The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process. Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more. Salary Range $149,000—$198,500 USD Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more. Our journey is always people first. We aren’t just developing driverless cars; we’re creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move. Higher purpose, greater impact. We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do. Scale up, not starting up. Our team is behind some of the industry’s largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world’s first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world’s longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges. Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube. Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.