Principal AI/ML Engineer at General Motors
Dover, DE
$296,300–$423,900from the description
Jun 29, 2026
Dover, DE
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior technical leadership role focused on building and directing the team responsible for trajectory generation within an autonomous driving system — the component that produces the precise motion plans governing how a self-driving vehicle navigates lanes, intersections, and complex traffic scenarios. The work spans ML model development, large-scale training pipelines, and real-time onboard deployment, requiring both hands-on architectural involvement and management of senior engineers. It suits an experienced ML or robotics leader with a background in motion planning, imitation or reinforcement learning, and production safety-critical systems.
Principal level · Remote · Master's required · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 10 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 600 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (computer and information systems managers). range 250–1,100
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $178,991 (middle half $141,096–$225,584). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
This role is a genuine hybrid of deep technical IC work (ML architecture, trajectory generation modeling) and people leadership (managing a team, mentoring senior engineers, setting roadmaps). 11-3021 (Computer and Information Systems Managers) was chosen as primary because the JD explicitly frames it as a 'Technical Lead Manager' with direct team leadership, cross-functional initiative ownership, and organizational impact — not a pure IC role. 15-2051 (Data Scientists) is the runner-up given the heavy ML/modeling depth required.
The title 'Principal Technical Lead Manager' carries an explicit 'Principal' level claim, and the scope (org-wide technical direction, leading multiple teams across the autonomous driving stack) genuinely supports that band — this is not a routine senior role inflated by title alone.
The JD requires an MS or PhD; 'or related field' does not offer an experience-in-lieu path, so Masters is set as the minimum hard degree gate.
Python and C++ are listed together with 'or similar' — they are treated as interchangeable alternatives for the same software engineering requirement rather than two separate mandatory skills.
The required deep expertise areas (robotics planning/control, imitation/reinforcement learning, generative models, large-scale ML systems) are listed as 'one or more' — meaning the candidate must be expert in at least one. They are marked required but reflect a menu rather than all being simultaneously mandatory.
Compensation note from the posting: the stated range ($296,300–$423,900/year) may not be representative for positions outside the California Bay Area.
The role is hybrid-remote: fully remote is permitted, but candidates within 50 miles of Austin TX, Detroit/Warren/Milford MI, or Mountain View CA are expected on-site 3 days/week.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): robotics planning and control, trajectory planning.
This posting reads as a fully-remote role, so it was scored against the national candidate pool rather than a single metro.
Read the full posting
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