What’s the tech background of an autonomous-vehicle engineer?
Cruise, the San-Francisco–based designer and operator of all-electric self-driving cars, employs nearly 2,000 engineers, including somewhere between 300 and 900 engineers with Ph.D. degrees. They work in hardware and software. They specialize in AI, security, and safety. And though, indeed, some have robotics, automation, or automotive backgrounds, many don’t. Instead, they come from an incredibly long list of different technical fields—e-commerce, finance, game development, animation, cameras, semiconductors, and app development.