Staff Tech Lead Manager, ML Data Services

The ML Data Service team is seeking a highly experienced and motivated Staff Tech Lead Manager (TLM) to lead the development and operation of our core machine learning data infrastructure. This critical role requires a blend of deep technical expertise in machine learning systems, large-scale data processing, and proven leadership ability to manage both individual contributors and technical direction.

The ML Data Service team is responsible for providing reliable, high-quality, and easily accessible data for all ML use cases. As owners of the "Data Engineering" phase of the ML lifecycle, they manage the most critical input to any ML system: the data itself. Our infrastructure supports hundreds of data pipelines and petabytes of data, directly enabling the success of our flagship products.

What You'll Do:

Technical Leadership and Strategy

• Define and drive the technical roadmap and long-term strategy for the ML Data Service platform, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of ML engineers across the company.
• Serve as the top technical expert for the team, architecting complex, highly scalable, and fault-tolerant systems for data ingestion, transformation, and serving.
• Lead the technical vision for the provision of diverse training data sources, including ingestion from real-world drive logs, resimulation outputs, autolabelling pipelines, and human labelling efforts.
• Drive the implementation of robust mechanisms for monitoring data quality, tracking data lineage, and ensuring overall data governance and compliance.
• Provide hands-on technical guidance, design reviews, and mentorship to engineers, ensuring the adoption of best practices, high code quality, and operational excellence.

Management and Team Growth:

• Manage a team of software engineers, including performance reviews, career development, coaching, and mentoring.
• Act as a technical leader-manager hybrid, balancing 50% management duties with 50% technical leadership, architecture, and hands-on coding/design.
• Drive hiring and recruitment efforts to attract, onboard, and retain top engineering talent, fostering a diverse and inclusive team culture.
• Champion engineering excellence, operational rigor, and a strong sense of ownership within the team.

Collaboration and Execution:

• Collaborate closely with ML model teams and Infrastructure teams to understand data needs and deliver solutions that accelerate ML development cycles.
• Lead the execution of major projects, ensuring on-time delivery and alignment with business objectives.
• Communicate complex technical concepts and strategic direction effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including executive leadership.

What We're Looking For:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with a strong focus on large-scale data systems, distributed systems, or ML infrastructure.
• 3+ years of experience managing engineering projects with a track record of delivering efficient tools and infra. Manger experience of building and scaling high-performing teams is a strong plus (including mentoring, performance management, and career development).
• Deep expertise in data processing technologies (e.g., Spark, Flink, Beam, distributed databases) and experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and operating production-grade ML data pipelines or feature stores.

This role is hybrid from our Boston and Pittsburgh offices and requires two in-office days per week, ideally Tuesday and Thursday.

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process. Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.

Salary Range: $225,000 USD - $275,000 USD

Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.

Our journey is always people first.

We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.

Higher purpose, greater impact.

We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do.

Scale up, not starting up.

Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.

Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.