Tesla Motors hiring autonomous driving experts hinting future RoboTesla

Tesla Motors, who has reportedly had talks with Google concerning that company's driverless car research, is now looking to hire an Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) Controls Engineer to design autonomous driving technologies. The job opening is currently listed on Tesla's careers section, and follows a job opening a couple months ago looking for a RADAR systems engineer.

The company makes what is widely regarded as one of the best cars ever manufactured, the Tesla Model S. However, it's lacking the sort of driver assist features other high end cars have. Some of those driver assist features, like Ford's parallel parking assistant, are stepping stones towards full autonomous driving.

The current job opening tells applicants they will be "responsible for developing vehicle-level decision-making and lateral and longitudinal control strategies for Tesla’s effort to pioneer fully automated driving."

The job responsibilities point directly to developing fully autonomous driving, including "control algorithms in the area of advanced driver assistance systems," research and design work in Tesla's on-board software for "advanced driver assistance systems control algorithms," and "hardware and software architectures" across Tesla's vehicle system so that "advanced driver assistance systems have appropriate performance and meet functional safety expectations and norms."

The required experience also falls in line with the goal of developing fully autonomous driving. The person should have research experience in applying "advanced control theory to autonomous driving technologies," understanding the sensor systems used in autonomous driving, knowledge of on-board data communications protocols (CANBUS) and more.

Another job listing in early August was looking for a RADAR engineer with "3-10 years of design and release responsibility on sensors (Radar, Cameras, Lidar, and Ultrasound) and active safety systems" and would be responsible for "translating Tesla’s autopilot roadmap into active safety features and into requirements."

Between these two job postings, it's clear that Tesla Motors is planning to develop autonomous driving systems. This is the sort of feature that cannot be developed overnight, if only because of the extensive testing that would be required to ensure safety. The initial features to come from these employees may be driver assist features, such as lane-keeping assistants, parking assistants and the like.