Volkswagen's Silicon Valley Software Hub Already Stacked with Rivian Talent

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Volkswagen Group's struggling software arm, Cariad, has hired at least 23 top employees from Rivian over the past several months, according to a review of LinkedIn data. The hires include Cariad's chief software officer, chief product security officer, two vice presidents, and two principal engineers, all of whom came from senior software roles at Rivian.

The hires pre-date the recently announced $5 billion deal between Volkswagen Group and Rivian, which will allow the German giant to leverage Rivian's software and electrical architecture expertise. The joint venture is still being formed and isn't expected to be formalized until the fourth quarter.

Despite this, the wave of new hires illustrates Volkswagen's desire to tap into software talent, particularly from startups like Rivian. The hires have bolstered Cariad's effort to build up a Silicon Valley outpost in Mountain View called the SDV Hub, which is focused on developing next-generation software architecture known as "software 2.0."

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The SDV hub is led by Sanjay Lal, who was hired in fall 2023 to lead the establishment of the hub. Lal previously led the development of Rivian's infotainment and next-gen middleware across the vehicle and cloud. The focus of the engineers at the SDV hub in California, as well as some German-based workers under Lal, is on the software 2.0 architecture that is supposed to be an operating system designed for all Volkswagen Group brands.

While Cariad has more than 7,000 employees worldwide, its footprint in North America is much smaller. The SDV hub currently has around 230 employees, according to LinkedIn. That means recent Rivian expats now make up around 10% of Cariad's employee base in the region.

These hires come as Cariad is in the middle of restructuring after years of struggles. Created in 2020, Cariad was supposed to speed up development of advanced software and electrical architecture for Volkswagen Group's big push into EVs. As Cariad grew in size, its problems compounded. Its software 1.2 platform, which was being developed for Audi and Porsche cars, was originally scheduled for completion in 2022. The constant delays and other internal problems led to several executive shakeups and is considered one of the reasons Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess was dismissed in 2022.

Cariad, now under the direction of Peter Bosch, has successfully completed the 1.2 software architecture that will be in the upcoming Porsche Macan EV. But it's the 2.0 architecture that is meant to catapult all of the group's brands in the same sphere as Tesla.

Tapping talent from the likes of Rivian bucks how Cariad was building out its North American workforce over the last two years. Prior to the last few months, most Cariad employees in the region came from other places inside the Volkswagen Group, from automotive or software suppliers. Far fewer came from tech companies, like Cariad's director of software engineering, who spent almost a decade at Google.

Volkswagen and Cariad are not the only ones looking to startups like Rivian to build out talent. Ford's own secretive low-cost EV project has been snapping up workers from Rivian, Tesla, Lucid Motors, and even Apple's disbanded Project Titan.