Automotive & Software-Defined Vehicles

Automotive is being rebuilt as a software platform on wheels. The vehicles that will be on the road in 2028 through 2032 — SDR-capable ADAS, Level 3 hands-off driving on scaled operating design domains, Level 4 robotaxi fleets in mapped urban zones, autonomous freight on long-haul corridors — are being architected today, and the leadership market has not yet caught up to the profile the transition requires. Silvia Flores leads executive search for the automotive-and-software-defined-vehicle sub-practice of Alder Koten's mobility practice, working across OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers, and the venture-backed autonomy layer.

What we search for

• ADAS Level 2+, Level 3, and Level 4 program leadership
• Autonomous driving stack — perception, planning, prediction, and control
• Sensor fusion — camera, LiDAR, radar, ultrasonic, and thermal integration
• Robotaxi programs — vehicle, operations, teleoperation, and depot
• Software-defined vehicle platforms and vehicle operating systems
• Zonal architecture, high-performance compute, and central computing
• Over-the-air (OTA) software delivery and feature-flag operations
• Cybersecurity for connected vehicles (ISO/SAE 21434, UNECE R155)
• Functional safety leadership (ISO 26262) at ASIL D
• AI/ML operations for driving policy — data engines, simulation, closed-loop

The roles

Chief Technology Officers and VPs of Software Platform; VPs of Autonomous Driving and Directors of Autonomy Program; Directors of Perception, Planning, and Prediction engineering; Directors of Vehicle Operating System and Middleware; ADAS Program Directors and Functional Safety Directors (ISO 26262 ASIL D); Cybersecurity Directors (ISO/SAE 21434, UNECE R155); Directors of Sensor Engineering across camera, LiDAR, radar, and thermal; Robotaxi Operations Directors including teleoperation, safety-driver, and depot leadership; Directors of AI/ML Operations covering data engines, simulation, and closed-loop validation.

The ecosystem we cover

Established OEMs building autonomy in-house — Ford, GM, Stellantis, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen Group, Hyundai-Kia — and their software-first competitors (Tesla, BYD, XPeng, NIO). The Tier-1 platform base — Bosch, Continental, ZF, Aptiv, Magna, Denso, Marelli, Faurecia, Yanfeng — and the ADAS silicon layer (Mobileye, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Ambarella, Horizon Robotics, Black Sesame). The pure-play autonomy stack — Waymo, Zoox, Wayve, Applied Intuition, Aurora, Kodiak Robotics, Nuro, Gatik, Plus, Stack AV — where the venture-backed layer is now the innovation front line. The connection to Alder Koten's automotive pillar, EV and battery pillar, and the mobility startup executive search sub-practice runs through every mandate.

How the search runs

Through The Dynamic Fit Method™, evaluating Ability, Capability, and Capacity for the rate of change the role will carry. Automotive-SDV mandates typically require a candidate who can hold OEM-plant discipline, functional-safety maturity, and startup-velocity software delivery inside a single profile; the method's multi-competence assessment is calibrated for exactly that read. Contact the practice to open a search.

Automotive-SDV search — questions

What is a software-defined vehicle in leadership terms?

The software-defined vehicle (SDV) collapses what were sixty to a hundred distributed ECUs into a small number of high-performance compute domains, delivered as a software platform that can ship features over-the-air after the car leaves the plant. In leadership terms, it moves the center of gravity of the automotive product organization from mechanical program management to software platform ownership. The roles Silvia searches for — VPs of Software Platform, Chief Technology Officers, Directors of Vehicle OS, Autonomy Program Directors — did not meaningfully exist in the automotive Tier base in 2019 and are now the scarcest leadership profile in the industry.

How is autonomous-driving leadership different from advanced-driver-assistance leadership?

ADAS leaders ship features against known operating envelopes and known regulatory windows. Autonomous-driving leaders ship features against a driving policy that generalizes across an operating design domain — which requires a data engine, a simulation platform, a closed-loop validation stack, and a safety case that will be argued in front of a regulator. The competence overlap is real but the accountability shape is different, and hiring one profile into the other role is the most expensive mistake this segment makes.

Do you place robotaxi operating leadership as well as engineering leadership?

Yes. Robotaxi programs need vehicle engineering leadership, autonomy stack leadership, and operations leadership — including depot operations, teleoperation-center leadership, safety-driver programs, remote-assistance operations, fleet management, and customer-facing operations. The retained-search model spans all of it.

Where do these roles sit in the US–Mexico corridor?

OEM autonomy programs sit in Michigan, Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh, Austin, Munich, Stuttgart, and Shanghai — but the vehicle platform, the ADAS validation fleet, the sensor manufacturing base, and the launch programs increasingly sit across the Mexican corridor: Bajío for automotive Tiers, Guadalajara for electronics and silicon, Monterrey for heavy-industry and border-integrated assembly. The search runs across both sides.