Nemanja Djuric is a Principal Engineer and Tech Lead Manager at Aurora, for the past 8.5 years working on motion prediction, object detection, and other technologies supporting self-driving vehicles. Prior to ATG he worked as a research scientist at Yahoo Labs, which he joined after obtaining his Ph.D. in Machine Learning and Data Mining at Temple University.

The Pop in Your Job: What drives you? Why do you love your job?
We are working on new technologies that will fundamentally improve the way we live and move, and that by itself is a great motivator to come to work energized and ready to tackle the next challenge that comes your way. Coupled with truly exceptional and hard-working colleagues, as well as with the leadership that understands the problem inside out and what needs to be done to get to the final product, one feels supported and challenged at the same time which is a great place to be at. It has been amazing to experience the journey that brought us to where we are today, with self-driving vehicles becoming a more common sight on both highways and city roads, and I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds.

Aurora is delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. Founded in 2017 by experts in the self-driving industry, Aurora is revolutionizing transportation – making it safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient than ever before. Its flagship product, the Aurora Driver, is a platform that brings together software, hardware, and data services, to autonomously operate passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and heavy-duty trucks. Aurora is partnered with industry leaders across the transportation ecosystem.