Data Scientist, Behavior Evaluation
Job Location:
Boston, MA - USA
Monthly Salary:
Posted on:
Vacancies:
Job Summary
As a Data Scientist on the Behavior Evaluation team you will be the statistical anchor ensuring our autonomous driving systems navigate highway environments with world-class safety efficiency and comfort. Highway evaluation presents a unique industry challenge: verifying vehicle behavior at high velocities where the margin for error is razor-thin and critical edge cases are buried in petabytes of data.
In this role you will bridge advanced statistical methodology with scalable software engineering. You will design the mathematical frameworks statistical tests and data-driven metrics that evaluate our planners decisions. Working directly with large-scale simulation and real-world fleet data your insights will define our validation pipelines identify behavioral regressions and directly shape the software powering our next-generation autonomous fleet.
In this role you will:
Design Advanced Experimental Frameworks: Formulate robust statistical models hypothesis testing frameworks and quasi-experimental designs (such as synthetic controls or matching) to rigorously validate highway planner behavior in simulation and shadow-mode deployments.
Model Tail Risks & Rare Events: Use Surrogate Safety Measures (e.g. TTC PET) to accurately model and predict low-frequency high-severity edge cases that traditional mean-based statistics miss.
Architect Scenario-Based Metrics: Own and mature critical behavioral KPIs utilizing data stratification to analyze complex driving scenarios (e.g. high-speed merging cut-ins) while proactively identifying statistical anomalies like Simpsons Paradox.
Surface Statistical Edge Cases: Apply data mining and advanced statistical techniques to isolate low-frequency high-severity edge cases and systemic Autonomy engineering debt.
- Drive Cross-Functional Alignment: Translate complex statistical findings and multi-source evaluations into clear actionable technical recommendations collaborating closely with Autonomy Software Engineers Safety Systems and Product teams.
Qualifications:
Education: Bachelors or Masters degree in a highly quantitative field (e.g. Statistics Mathematics Data Science Operations Research or a related field with a strong statistical focus).
Experience: 36 years of professional experience as a Data Scientist or Quantitative Engineer with a proven track record of landing data-driven impact.
Strong Statistical Foundations: Deep understanding of hypothesis testing experimental design regression analysis non-parametric/resampling methods (e.g. bootstrapping permutation tests) and time-series analysis handling autocorrelated data.
Strong Programming: High proficiency in Python (Pandas NumPy SciPy scikit-learn) and the ability to write highly complex optimized SQL queries for massive distributed databases.
- Communication: Exceptional ability to articulate complex mathematical methodologies and statistical results to cross-functional engineering partners.
Bonus Qualifications
Robotics or Autonomy Background: Experience analyzing spatial-temporal data sensor logs or vehicle telemetry from robotics autonomous vehicles or aviation systems.
Simulation-Based Testing: Familiarity with validating software systems using empty-world or simulation platforms at scale.
- Modern Data Stack: Experience with workflow orchestration tools (e.g. Airflow) and building advanced data visualization layers (e.g. Superset).
Required Experience:
IC
About Company
We’re reinventing personal transportation—making the future safer, cleaner, and more enjoyable for everyone. This is on-demand autonomous ride-hailing.
