Job Description

What to Expect

Tesla’s AI Integration team builds the infrastructure that powers the future of self-driving vehicles and humanoid robotics (Optimus). The AI Test Systems Engineer designs the systems that ensure Tesla’s AI is safe, reliable, and continuously improving, not only in the real world, but at every step of development.

This role develops scalable test platforms and automation systems that combine real-world fleet data, hardware-in-the-loop validation, and large-scale simulation to catch issues early, maximize coverage, and accelerate iteration. This is more than testing, it is building the feedback loop that drives AI evolution.

Simulation is central to this mission. The engineer helps design and scale the systems that replay complex real-world scenarios with precision, reproduce rare edge cases, and validate end-to-end autonomy in virtual environments. These simulations are essential to how Tesla trains, debugs, and refines AI at scale.

The role also builds backend services for test orchestration, dynamic simulation environments, and data analysis across petabytes of sensor and behavioral data. These systems enable engineers to iterate faster and ship systems with guaranteed safety.

At Tesla, rapid innovation is a core part of how the future is built. This work strengthens that foundation, closing the loop between simulation and reality to drive real-world progress.

What You’ll Do

• Develop innovative evaluation and test solutions across all of Tesla’s AI system features, ensuring holistic, end-to-end validation of autonomy capabilities for both vehicles and Optimus
• Architect and implement next-generation test platforms that integrate Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL), simulation, and AI-driven analysis to validate autonomy systems in chaotic, real-world scenarios
• Design, build, and scale simulation environments and scenario-generation pipelines that reproduce real-world conditions deterministically and expand test coverage with randomized scenario generation
• Build scalable infrastructure-as-code solutions to automate CI/CD test workflows, from scheduling to execution, ensuring rapid iteration and high reliability
• Design systems that leverage AI/ML to identify edge cases, optimize test scenarios, and prioritize safety-critical failures
• Build scalable systems to aggregate, visualize, and extract actionable insights from petabytes of test data across diverse test variants, enabling teams to make data-driven decisions
• Collaborate closely with Autonomy and firmware teams to embed intelligent test frameworks directly into development pipelines, reducing bottlenecks and accelerating deployment
• Integrate LLM-based tooling to automate root-cause analysis of test failures, turning hours of manual debugging into instant insights

What You’ll Bring

• Strong foundation in software engineering with a focus on system design, object-oriented programming, distributed systems, and scalable backend architectures
• Advanced proficiency in Python, including object-oriented design, multi-threading, and scripting; experience with C++ a plus
• Deep hands-on experience building and owning HIL and/or SIL testing frameworks, with a track record of solving complex validation challenges
• Hands-on experience with containerization technologies such as Docker or Singularity and CI/CD tools like Jenkins, TeamCity, or Artifactory
• Comfortable working in Linux/Unix environments with expertise in Bash, scripting, and low-level system debugging
• Experience leveraging Agentic tooling in production systems
• A relentless drive to improve quality without sacrificing velocity, with a proven ability to own end-to-end solutions from concept to deployment
• Hands-on experience with simulation frameworks for autonomy or robotics—building or scaling simulation infrastructure, scenario generation, synthetic data, or sim-to-real validation

Compensation and Benefits

Benefits

Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:

• Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction
• Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
• Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution
• Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA
• Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
• Company paid Basic Life, AD&D
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period)
• Employee Assistance Program
• Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays
• Back-up childcare and parenting support resources
• Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance
• Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs
• Tesla Babies program
• Commuter benefits
• Employee discounts and perks program

Expected Compensation

$118,000 - $390,000/annual salary + cash and stock awards + benefits

Pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.