About this Autonomy Solution Architect, Project Technical Lead role at Venti Technologies
A world empowered by autonomy. We build robotic vehicles to improve logistics safety, forge a greener Earth, and enhance human lives.
We are a closely-knit team aspiring to change the world through disruptive technology. We are innovators. We are tinkerers. We are problem-solvers. And we have a fair amount of magic dust up our sleeves. We have a plan for fleet-level deployment of autonomous vehicles, and we are looking for the best-of-the-best to join us in making this a reality.
About Venti Technologies
Based in the U.S. and Asia, Venti Technologies is the leader in safe-speed autonomous logistics systems, developing the future of goods transportation. Using rigorous mathematics, deep learning, and theoretically-grounded algorithms, Venti has a proprietary collection of autonomy technologies including a suite of powerful logistics algorithms. Venti’s proven value proposition of saving costs, increasing vehicle utilization, and improving safety is recognized by customers and driving growth.
Launched in 2018, Venti brings together an unsurpassed team internationally. The company has autonomous systems deployed in Asia for industrial and logistics sites and a growing pipeline. Venti has offices in Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA), Suzhou (China), and Singapore – our Asian headquarters.
About the role
Venti Technologies builds autonomous trucks and the systems around them for ports, rail yards and airports. As Autonomy Solution Architect, Project Technical Lead, you own the technical solution and the software release quality for a customer project. You turn a customer's site, operations and constraints into a deployable autonomous solution, carry that design through to go-live, and decide whether each project release is ready to ship. You work alongside the project's PM / TPM, who owns customer commitments and priority, and the US Technical Director, who runs the real-time customer channel and the US site.
What you'll do
Support the PM / TPM and US Technical Director in technical discovery and requirement clarification with customers: site surveys, operational workflows, traffic and safety rules, and integration points with terminal or yard systems.
Translate customer requirements into clear technical specs and acceptance criteria for engineering teams (perception, planning, controls, localization, mapping).
Own the solution architecture for new sites and expansions, including operational design domain (ODD) definition and known limitations.
Own the technical plan for pilots and site acceptance testing, define release content, acceptance criteria and the KPIs used to judge success, and support the US team that runs demos and acceptance on site.
Design end-to-end solutions covering vehicles, autonomy configuration, maps, fleet management, remote operation and connectivity.
Assess the severity and impact of field issues, propose their priority to the PM / TPM, and drive root-cause analysis and fixes.
Be a technical counterpart for customer engineering teams, working alongside the US Technical Director, who owns the real-time customer channel.
Technical leadership
Act as technical lead for your customer project: own the technical plan and key solution decisions.
Own software quality and the release readiness gate: review simulation and testing results, and make the go/no-go call on each project release.
Issue periodic release candidate builds with release notes, specify testing focuses, and make sure field fixes return to mainline through the release path.
Identify and manage technical risks for the project and lead release validation reviews with the PM / TPM and US Technical Director.
Advise the PM / TPM on scope, schedule and customer commitments, ensuring promises are technically sound.
Contribute to the product roadmap with leadership based on customer needs, field performance and recurring RCA findings.
Contribute to solution architecture standards, reference designs and reusable patterns across ports, rail yards and airports.
Own feature requirements and solutions for the project and review designs with the across perception, planning, controls, localization, mapping, fleet and remote operation teams.
Support customer escalations and steering-committee reviews as a trusted technical expert.
What you'll bring
Bachelor's or Master's in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, or similar.
10+ years in autonomous systems, robotics or complex industrial automation, including 4+ years in customer-facing technical roles (solutions, systems or field engineering) and a track record of leading technical delivery and software releases for large deployments.
Working knowledge of the autonomy stack: perception, localization, planning, controls, and how their limits shape a deployment.
Experience with ROS 2, Linux and simulation-based validation; able to read logs and rosbags to diagnose issues.
Clear written and spoken English; able to explain technical trade-offs to executives and operators alike, and to hold a technical position under commercial pressure.
Nice to have
Domain experience in container terminals, rail intermodal yards, airports or other logistics hubs.
Experience with HD mapping, site digitization or vehicle-to-infrastructure integration.
Background in fleet operations, remote operation or teleoperation systems.
Comfort with system integration: REST/gRPC APIs, messaging, networking (LTE/5G, Wi-Fi) and fleet or mission management software.
Familiarity with safety practices for autonomous vehicles (e.g. ISO 26262, ISO 21448/SOTIF, ISO 3691-4, or UL 4600).
