Principal Software Engineer, Vehicle Dynamics Simulation - AV
NVIDIA Corporation · Santa Clara, CA
$248,000–$391,000from the description
Jul 16, 2026
Santa Clara, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A principal-level individual contributor role focused on building and owning a production vehicle dynamics simulation framework for autonomous vehicle development. The work centers on designing C++ interfaces for multiple model fidelity levels, creating parameter identification and validation workflows, and translating control commands into realistic motion across scenarios ranging from highway driving to parking and emergency maneuvers. Suits a deeply experienced engineer with a strong background in vehicle dynamics modeling and production simulation software.
Principal level · 15+ years · Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 4 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 190 people in the Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 70–250
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052). 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)
The role is explicitly framed as a 'Principal-level individual contributor' and demands 15+ years of experience with org-wide technical vision, architecture, and roadmap ownership — genuine Principal scope, not merely a Senior with a long tenure.
SOC confidence is Medium: the role is primarily about building a production C++ simulation framework (→ 15-1252 Software Developers), but the deep physics/vehicle-dynamics modeling work has a strong computer-aided engineering / simulation science flavor that could also fit 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other).
Degree requirement is set to None because the JD explicitly accepts 'equivalent experience' in lieu of a Bachelor's degree.
Location is not explicitly stated in the posting; NVIDIA's primary campus is Santa Clara, CA (CBSA 41940), used as the best available inference.
Tire model types (Pacejka Magic Formula, Fiala, FTire, TMeasy) are listed as examples within a hard-requirements section describing deep knowledge of tire models — captured as a single required skill reflecting that domain gate.
The 'Ways to stand out' section lists all preferred tools (Project Chrono, CARLA, CarSim, CarMaker, Simulink/Simscape, ADAMS, Simbody, BeamNG, Unreal Engine/PhysX, Protocol Buffers, gRPC, Bazel, CMake, containerized simulation, CI, CUDA, validation dashboards, high-performance numerical computing) — all marked preferred accordingly.
Simscape and PhysX are sub-products of Simulink and Unreal Engine respectively and are folded into those parent entries rather than emitted as separate skills.
Simbody has no widely-used standalone canonical name distinct from its parent ecosystem and is captured within the Project Chrono alternatives cluster.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): vehicle dynamics modeling.
Read the full posting
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