torcrobotics
Software for autonomous heavy-duty trucking.
Company facts
- Founded
- 2005
- Employees
- 867
- Headquarters
- United States
- CEO
- Peter Vaughan Schmidt
- Type
- Private
- Funding
- Corporate Round · 2019
- Subsidiaries
- Algolux, Torc Europe GmbH
About
What began in 2005 as Torc Technologies, a venture by a group of Virginia Tech graduate students, has evolved into a leading name in autonomous vehicle technology. The mission from the outset was to continue their collegiate work on autonomous vehicle software, initially focusing on Tele-Operated Robotic Controls (TORC) and developing Level 4 autonomous technology. A significant early milestone came in 2007 when Torc, in partnership with Virginia Tech, secured third place in the DARPA Urban Challenge. This achievement involved their Ford Escape, 'Odin,' autonomously navigating 60 miles of urban and off-road environments. The company's journey continued with impactful projects, including a 2010 partnership with Virginia Tech for the National Federation of the Blind's Blind Driver Challenge, which earned them the National Instruments' 2010 Application of the Year. This project saw a blind driver independently operate Torc's modified Ford Escape on the Daytona Speedway in 2011. Torc's expertise also extended to defense, developing autonomous solutions like the Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate (GUSS) to assist military personnel. Over the years, Torc has been involved in various defense and heavy equipment applications, and participated in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. A pivotal moment arrived in March 2019 when Daimler AG, through Daimler Trucks North America, acquired a majority stake in Torc Robotics. This partnership shifted Torc's primary focus to commercializing autonomous trucks for long-haul applications in the United States. Torc is now an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG. The company has since expanded its operations, opening an engineering office in Austin, Texas, and a Technology and Development Center in Stuttgart, Germany in 2022, as well as facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Montreal, Canada. Torc continues to advance its 'physical AI,' enabling self-driving trucks to perceive, understand, and act in the real world, with a commercial launch targeted for 2027.
Senior, Software Engineer - AutoTagging
Build and scale data pipelines that tag petabytes of autonomous-truck logs, turning raw sensor data into curated driving scenarios for ML and simulation teams using Python, Databricks, AWS, and CI/CD.
Senior Product Manager
Senior Product Manager at Torc Robotics defining product requirements, user journeys, and Operational Design Domain specs for on-road autonomous driving technology. Works with engineering, regulatory, and commercialization teams, applying ADAS and sensing expertise (camera, radar, LiDAR, sensor fusion) and safety frameworks like NHTSA and Euro NCAP.
Senior Software Engineer - Cloud Automation
Senior engineer on the cloud platform team that builds and runs the company's global AWS foundation — account vending, networking, security posture, EKS/ECS shared infrastructure, and CI/CD tooling used by autonomous-driving engineering teams. Core tech: AWS (Organizations, Control Tower, EKS/ECS), Terraform/AFT, Python, and GitHub Actions/Jenkins.
Senior, ML Engineer - Auto Tagging
Build ML pipelines to extract and tag rare driving scenarios from petabytes of truck sensor data, enabling safer autonomous trucking through structured scenario libraries.
Senior, ML Engineer - 3D Reconstruction
Build and deploy ML systems that reconstruct 3D lane lines and maps from noisy sensor data (cameras, LiDAR, radar, GPS/IMU) to power autonomous truck perception and HD mapping.
Senior Software Engineer - New AI Initiatives
Build and deploy AI/ML models for autonomous truck software, from data pipelines to embedded deployment, while exploring cutting-edge initiatives.
Senior, HR Business Partner
About the Company At Torc, we have always believed that autonomous vehicle technology will transform how we travel, move freight, and do business. A leader in autonomous driving since 2007, Torc has spent over a decade…
Senior, ML Engineer - VLM
Senior ML Engineer builds and curates large-scale vision-language datasets to train Torc’s autonomous truck-driving models, using cloud pipelines, open-vocabulary labeling, and distributed compute.
Senior, Machine Learning Engineer - 3D Perception
Senior Machine Learning Engineer designing and deploying 3D perception models for autonomous trucks, using PyTorch and multi-modal sensor data to improve environmental understanding.
Senior, Product Cybersecurity Architect
Design and implement cybersecurity controls for autonomous truck software, embedding security into embedded Linux/QNX systems and automotive networks while collaborating with safety and autonomy teams.
Senior System Test Engineer - Simulation
Owns system-level simulation testing of Torc's autonomous driving software, planning and executing virtual V&V campaigns for perception and autonomy, maintaining the scenario library, and analyzing/triaging simulation results. Core stack includes OpenScenario-based scenarios, Python, YAML, and Linux.
Senior, Machine Learning Engineer - Camera Model
Develop and deploy deep learning models for camera-based perception in autonomous trucks, focusing on object detection, segmentation, and depth estimation using Python and PyTorch.
Senior, Product Cybersecurity Archiect
Design and implement cybersecurity controls for autonomous truck software, embedding security into embedded OS, networking, and cryptographic systems while collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure safety-critical compliance.