How to apply for Senior or Staff Systems Engineer - Autonomous Vehicles

About Glydways

Glydways builds carbon-neutral autonomous transit networks using standardized vehicles on dedicated roadways. The system runs 24/7 with on-demand access and aims to avoid heavy upfront infrastructure costs and taxpayer subsidies. This is a fit for engineers who want to work on autonomous mobility with a sustainability and public-access angle.

About the role

This role sits on the Systems team, which owns system requirements, safety function architecture, vehicle definition, and infrastructure across autonomy, hardware, safety, and operations. You will architect and verify functional, logical, hardware, and software systems. The work bridges product vision and engineering execution for a full transit network, not a single vehicle feature.

A typical day

A typical day likely involves working on system requirements or safety function architecture with autonomy, hardware, safety, infrastructure, and operations teams. You would review interfaces, verification results, or vehicle definition decisions and resolve cross-team system issues. The details of daily routines are not stated in the posting, so ask about team structure, tools, and meeting cadence in the interview.

Who Glydways is looking for

• Has hands-on systems engineering experience across functional, logical, hardware, and software layers, not just one domain.
• Has worked on autonomous vehicles, robotics, or safety-critical transportation systems.
• Can write and manage system requirements and trace them through verification.
• Is comfortable working across autonomy, vehicle hardware, safety, infrastructure, and operations teams.
• Can operate in a remote, full-time role with cross-functional coordination.

Tips for this application

• In your resume, name the specific systems you have architected and verified, and state the layer (functional, logical, hardware, or software) for each.
• Show safety-critical experience. Glydways is a transit system, so mention any work with safety functions, hazard analysis, or standards you have applied.
• Reference autonomous vehicles or dedicated-roadway transit directly. Generic software systems experience alone will not map to this role.
• Because the role is remote, describe how you have coordinated systems work across distributed teams and multiple engineering disciplines.
• Apply to the level you can defend. Senior and Staff are listed together, so state clearly which level matches your scope of ownership and evidence.

What to cover in your cover letter

State which systems you have architected end to end and at which layer. Describe your experience with safety functions or safety-critical verification. Explain how you have worked across autonomy, hardware, and operations teams. Connect your work to affordable, high-capacity transit rather than premium autonomous cars.

Research before applying

• Read how the Glydways system works: standardized autonomous vehicles, dedicated roadways, 24/7 on-demand access, and no taxpayer subsidies.
• Find Glydways pilot or deployment projects and note the cities and operating context.
• Check what safety standards or regulatory frameworks apply to autonomous transit on dedicated roadways.
• Look up the backgrounds of the systems, autonomy, and safety team leads to understand how the team is structured.

Likely interview topics

Based on the job description, expect questions about:

• How you would define system requirements for a standardized autonomous vehicle running on a dedicated roadway.
• How you architect a safety function across hardware and software and verify it.
• How you handle interfaces between autonomy, vehicle hardware, infrastructure, and operations.
• A specific system you architected and how you verified it met its requirements.
• How you would approach the tradeoffs of high capacity, affordability, and minimal environmental impact in a transit network.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating this as a generic software engineering role. The posting spans functional, logical, hardware, and software systems.
• Ignoring the transit context. This is public transit infrastructure, not a consumer autonomous car product.
• Claiming Staff-level ownership without evidence of end-to-end system architecture and verification.