Autonomous driving and connected-car platform development for Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz R&D North America is a distributed engineering organization spanning Silicon Valley, Michigan, Seattle, and Southern California—each hub focused on distinct vehicle technology layers: autonomous driving, powertrain and battery research, cloud architecture for connected services, and infotainment systems. The tech stack (Python, Kubernetes, SageMaker, Databricks, NVIDIA) reflects heavy investment in ML and embedded systems; hiring velocity is accelerating with senior and principal engineers, signaling active scaling in data infrastructure and ML platform maturity.
MBRDNA operates as Mercedes-Benz's North American innovation center, developing autonomous driving capabilities, next-generation battery chemistry, cloud platforms for vehicle connectivity, and AI-driven infotainment systems. The organization spans five key locations: Silicon Valley (autonomous driving, ML, user interaction design), Redford, Michigan (powertrain and electric-drive engineering), Long Beach (durability testing for driver assistance), Seattle (cloud architecture and connected-car services), and Carlsbad (vehicle design). The company employs 501–1,000 people and was founded in 1994.
Active projects include autonomous driving, battery chemistry research and performance optimization, ML-driven voice control and infotainment systems, connected-car cloud services, and ML ops platform enhancement. Teams also focus on error detection in training pipelines and end-to-end system testing.
Primary stack: Python, SQL, Git, SageMaker, Databricks, Kubernetes, Embedded Linux, CAN, Ethernet, and NVIDIA. The company also uses Unix, SSH, and Google services for distributed development across multiple R&D hubs.
Headquarters in San Jose, California. Additional R&D centers in Redford, Michigan (powertrain), Long Beach, California (testing), Seattle, Washington (cloud), Ann Arbor, Michigan (regulatory), and Carlsbad, California (vehicle design).
Other companies in the same industry, closest in size