Either you play the game or watch the game play you.
J.Cole
Look, anyone who has been paying attention to me over the past five or six years knows I am a fan of autonomous cars and autonomous adjacent tech. I have been on stage at the LA and Detroit Auto Shows talking about them with leaders from around the world. You could even say talking about autonomous cars helped land my Chief Innovation role with the City of Sacramento.
Even though I have become quite adept at speaking about them, the mere mention of autonomous (self-driving) vehicles can spark a debate in the closest of circles. The debate often progresses quickly from accidents to job loss, both standouts among the fears autonomous vehicles bring to the table. Is it true? Will autonomous vehicles mean job losses, or will they actually create jobs in the industry? Autonomous cars are coming, so, how can you get ready?
Amid the Fears
As is often the case with new technology, self-driving cars elicit fear among many Americans. The City of Sacramento was one of a handful of cities which stood by the industry when one of the first fatalities happened. Accidents (at least two fatalities) in the early tests of autonomous cars has not helped the industry which cannot afford mistakes. In addition to the inherent safety fears, Americans are also concerned about the jobs autonomous cars may make obsolete. In fact, in my first auto show experience with KPMG, I argued the focus needed to shift to workforce development and the technology offered one of the biggest opportunities to bring awareness to and train historically underrepresented population. A couple years later, the technology companies haven’t let me down and are already creating jobs across the country/world, fueled by the race among companies to be the first to successfully market a self-driving vehicle.
In 2018, the job postings related to autonomous vehicles grew 27 percent. Start-ups, hoping for gain, are getting in on the action, hiring aggressively in hopes of developmental success. Also, in the race to the first marketable model are well-established companies (Tesla, Apple, Alphabet, Ford, Toyota, and General Motors, and more) are also in full blown autonomous car development mode. Billions are being invested, but the questions remain, who will get there first and how will it impact the millions of Americans who work in driving related industries?
For now, truck drivers seem most susceptible, because highway navigation has proven easier to automate than city navigation. Once highway navigation is mastered, the cities won’t far behind, which means taxi drivers, mail carriers, and the like could be affected though the elimination of as many as 300,000 jobs annually once autonomous car technology is mastered. Because the process from no self-driving vehicles to fully automated autonomous cars, the transition will be gradual and most experts agree, autonomous cars aren’t likely to increase unemployment by much.
New Jobs on the Horizon
If historical data proves true, new technology, like the internet for example, ultimately has a positive effect on the economy. And in job creation, the autonomous car industry seems to be following the pattern with a number of jobs – technicians, designers, engineers, account managers, software developers, logistics, and more – already available. And as autonomous cars catch on and take off, so will the jobs connected with the industry.
Take a look some of the jobs available right now thanks to the self-driving car industry.
- Senior Software Engineer, Full Stack
Description: Develop 3D annotation tools to enhance data pipeline and aid in mapping new cities. Design and implement scalable data processing systems to support perception, motion planning, mapping, and the overall autonomous driving experience.
Education: Strong software programming experience. Five+ years of industry software engineering experience. Fluent in JavaScript, React, and AWS. Experience developing prototypes.
- Software Engineer, Vehicle OS
Description: Develop, maintain, improve, test, and deploy software on vehicles. This includes the development of fault tolerant systems which make autonomous driving decisions, provide extensive diagnostics and system health monitoring, as well as software to perform sensor calibration, environmental data collection, and offline data processing and analysis.
Education: BS or higher degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
- Senior Software Engineer, Backend
Description: Develop software which remotely operates vehicles.
Education: BS or higher in Computer Science, or equivalent real-world experience.
- Software Engineer, Full Stack
Description: Develop internal tools on board and off board autonomous vehicles to support the production of autonomous fleet and help engineers be more effective at working with data. Work cross functionally to architect, design, and implement scalable data processing systems to supports perception, motion planning, mapping, and the autonomous driving experience.
Education: 2+ years of industry software engineering experience.
- Software Engineer, Motion Planning
Description: Responsible for the development of environment modeling and motion planning algorithms and software to enable autonomous vehicles to interact with the environment.
Education: Experience with emerging deep learning based motion planning approaches. (LSTMs, Deep Reinforcement Learning, Deep Q-learning, etc.). Experience in writing safety-critical code.
- Software Engineer, Perception
Description: Responsible for development of the “brain” of autonomous systems. Using the wealth of data collected by fleet vehicles, you will design and innovate novel ways to approach autonomous driving using state-of-the-art software and hardware.
Education: BS/MS in CS or equivalent. Minimum of 2 years of relevant industry experience.
- Software Engineer, Simulation
Description: Build simulators for autonomous driving systems including software for vehicle, sensor, and environmental simulation. This software will integrate with real recorded data, predict how the vehicle will behave in scenarios, and gauge real-world performance. Work on the development of simulation tools and framework in areas related to 3D graphics rendering, physics simulations, vehicle dynamics modeling, and multi-agent systems.
Education: BS, MS, or PhD in computer science, engineering, math, physics, robotics, or related field.
- VP of Artificial Intelligence
Description: Responsible for creating overall AI roadmap company and building cohesive and comprehensive AI strategy for execution of the plan as well as providing technical guidance and align company objectives with development plans. Champion AI advancement and lead major strategic and cross-functional initiatives to drive the implementation of the roadmap. Oversee AI related research and development and work with multiple teams to develop and implement innovative algorithms and architectures.
Education: PHD in computer science or related fields with AI/ML specialization. Proven track record of 12+ years of progressive data science and ML/AI experience, with 3+ years in a significant leadership position managing large tech teams that designed, developed, and launched complex AI solutions.
- Data Annotator, Autonomous Vehicles
Description: Help collect and annotate data for use within a larger machine learning and crowdsourcing framework. Collaborate with a team, label images, and provide feedback to engineers to improve the user interface tools used in the process.
Education: Reliable, self-motivated, and hardworking individual with interest in cars and technology. Good communication skills.
- Senior Self-Driving Vehicle Operator
Description: Test and improve the performance of driverless cars. Strong attention to detail along with an excellent driving record required.
Education: Minimum of 6 months experience as a Safety Driver in an autonomous vehicle. Technical computer skills.
- Senior Software Engineer, Infrastructure
Description: Work with all levels of engineering teams to identify the greatest output blockers for fellow developers. Design and implement robust and efficient frameworks, infrastructure, and policies to accelerate progress to build the brain of the self-driving car using Deep Learning.
- Software Engineer, Test
Description: Responsible for developing testing framework, as large-scale deployment of technology moves forward. Work cross-functionally with a large number of teams handling infrastructure, perception, motion planning, and autonomous vehicle operations, with the outcome of testing and validating adaptable, reliable, and scalable self-driving platform.
Education: BS in Computer Science or equivalent. Eight+ years of production software QE/QA experience.
- Software Engineer, Build & Release
Description: Bridge operations and development in order to improve build, integration and deployment procedures, automated build pipeline, and CI/CD systems. Build and deploy releases throughout the software development life cycle as well as troubleshoot and resolve issues in development, test and production AWS environments. Demonstrated ability to work in a dynamic and complex software build environment and enjoys optimizing build environments for speed and reliability.
Education: BS or higher in Computer Science/Engineering or related field. Three+ years of SCM/build experience.
- Technical Program Manager, Self-Driving Technologies
Description: Define and guide engineering program execution related to self-driving vehicle platforms. Engage closely with both the product team and the engineering organization in order to ensure technical items are defined and delivered in a focused and systematic way. Responsible for defining requirements, engineering metrics, technical validation plans, and schedules; and working hand-in-hand with the engineering team to ensure their execution.
Education: An engineering undergraduate degree or equivalent plus hands-on computer science/engineering experience. Technical understanding from the highest software abstractions down to the hardware. Strong engineering background, ideally working across a broad range of technologies and ability to think and communicate at a “system level.”
As you can see, autonomous cars are in the works, which means adaptation to new technology, as well as continually increasing job opportunities. For the moment, the bulk of the jobs being created are in technology, engineering, and design, but sales, management, maintenance, production, and distribution will soon follow. One last little clue for cities exploring a new digital economy — dig into Cybersecurity as a foundational component to talent development. All elements of the digital economy will require the skills from auditors to risk assessors to the practitioners.
