Graduate 2026 PhD Software Engineer II (AV Labs), United States

Uber is launching AV Labs to accelerate the autonomous technology ecosystem. We're building out a high-velocity team of multi-disciplinary experts to turn real-world operations into high-quality data for our autonomous partners. This team is focused on the hardest problem in AV today: unlocking real-world, long-tail driving data. Autonomy is now a data race—and Uber has an edge: We collect rare, real-world driving data at a scale and capital efficiency no one else can match.

As a PhD Software Engineer II, you will be at the forefront of Physical AI, building advanced autonomy algorithms to add rich semantics to our massive driving data. You will be responsible for the development and implementation of the latest autonomy techniques that enables better data mining, deep scene understanding, and causal modeling of ego vehicle behavior.The ideal candidate will be able to identify complex edge cases, provide robust algorithmic solutions, and set a high technical excellence bar.

What you’ll do

• Algorithm Development: Develop algorithms that extract high-fidelity semantic meaning from complex urban edge cases to enrich our L4 data lake.
• System Design: Architect onboard systems, including management of upstream sensor dependencies and evaluation metrics for the stack.
• Dataset Optimization: Define the requirements for high-quality large evaluation datasets and objective metrics to evaluate the performance of the system..
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with platform, product, and security engineering teams to enable the successful deployment of the latest machine learning techniques into production.

Basic Qualifications

• Completing or recently completed a PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Vision, Fluid Mechanics, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in the Autonomous Driving domain
• Proven track record of deploying algorithms in safety-critical physical systems
• Knowledge of game theory
• Experience with control and optimization theory as part of the course of study
• Proficient in C++ and Linux environments

For Sunnyvale, CA-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD $171,000 per year - USD $190,000 per year.

You will be eligible to participate in Uber's bonus program, and may be offered an equity award & other types of comp. All full-time employees are eligible to participate in a 401(k) plan. You will also be eligible for various benefits.