Senior Manager, Data

About the Company

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders focused on the next chapter of automotive technology. We are developing operating systems, zonal controllers, and cloud connectivity solutions to set the standards for software-defined vehicles worldwide.

Responsibilities

• Manage, develop, and retain a team of data scientists and ML engineers
• Own team health, velocity, and delivery across vehicle telemetry pipelines and AI/ML feature development
• Drive the team's AI-forward agenda, including LLMs and machine learning applications
• Champion data-driven decision making across the Infotainment organization
• Lead and prepare senior leadership data reviews for Director and VP-level stakeholders
• Oversee the Databricks-based data platform, including pipelines and ML workflows
• Define team structure, headcount strategy, and long-term technical direction
• Recruit, onboard, and grow the data function talent pipeline

Requirements

• 10+ years in data engineering, data science, or ML engineering
• 4+ years of experience managing engineers or data scientists
• Hands-on proficiency in Python and SQL
• Experience with Databricks or equivalent modern data lakehouse platforms
• Demonstrated experience shipping or overseeing AI/ML products in production
• Understanding of telemetry data at scale (event streams, time-series, or IoT)
• Proven ability to influence product direction through data analysis
• Experience operating in complex, multi-stakeholder or matrixed environments
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English

Preferred Qualifications

• Background in automotive software, HMI/infotainment, or vehicle systems
• Experience with real-time telemetry pipelines like Kafka or Spark Streaming
• Familiarity with LLM integration patterns and agentic AI tooling
• Proficiency with Jira/Confluence-based program tracking