Employee Spotlight: Robert Pinkerton

From putting a Roadster into orbit at SpaceX to building life-changing, self-driving tech

Laser-focused on making an impact

Robert Pinkerton is a first-generation Guyanese American from New York who loves skateboarding and BMX, and is a systems engineer who’s been with Level 5 for the last year. After contributing to the 280-character count on Twitter and facilitating SpaceX’s ability to fly two new vehicles and several payloads (including a Tesla Roadster), Robert yearned for something different. He wanted a career that combined his love for robotics and complex hardware systems with his desire to deliver the most powerful social impact possible. Read on to hear his story, and why Level 5 was his first choice when he decided to switch to self-driving.

What is your role at Level 5?

As a systems engineer, I’m primarily focused on the architecture and definition of our next generation vehicle platform. I’m answering questions like: Which vehicle do we use?, How do we put sensors on this vehicle?, How do we manage our technical budgets?, and What level of compute do we need? I handle everything from the requirements definition to feature implementation to validation that we built the vehicle correctly.

How do you go about making those decisions?

I draw from three different areas:

1. Engagement with my Level 5 team. We’re very diverse and have a lot of perspectives, so we’re able to conduct effective tradestudies to make decisions appropriately.
2. Leveraging math, science, and analytics to ensure we’ve made the most accurate, data-driven decision.
3. My experience building and shipping complex systems at Lockheed Martin and SpaceX.

Can you tell us more about your experience before Level 5?

For undergrad, I studied electrical and computer engineering at the New York Institute of Technology. I then completed a Masters at Cornell in Systems Engineering while working at Lockheed Martin, where I was in their Engineering Leadership Development Program (a three-year rotational program to train future aerospace leaders). I worked on everything from advanced radars for electronic warfare and satellites to the inertial navigation system for the Ohio Class nuclear submarine and submarine launched intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles.

I enjoyed aerospace engineering, but I wanted to see what else was out there. After a year at Cornell I transferred to Stanford to pursue further graduate studies in electrical engineering and computer science while working for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Research Center out of Palo Alto. I wound up at the NSBE Convention to recruit for Stanford’s grad school, where I met the founder of Twitter. I was inspired by the culture he cultivated and ended up working for Twitter as a full stack software engineer. After a few months, I became the product manager of the Data Science and Analytics Team, making data-driven decisions for product changes (i.e. the switch to 280-character tweets).

While at Twitter, SpaceX asked me to support their Government Mission Management team. I eventually gave in and moved out to Los Angeles. There, I supported the EELV Certification of Block 5 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Launch vehicles, and ultimately helped enable SpaceX to fly several government payloads in a year.

Why did you make the transition to self-driving cars?

I feel blessed that I have the opportunity and skills to take what I’m good at and build meaningful things. I want to use that in a way that makes the biggest impact on society. One of the things I loved about Twitter was that I was working on a platform that was touching millions of people a month. It really impacts peoples’ lives. At the same time, I wanted access to robotics and complex hardware systems.

When I started thinking about leaving aerospace, I became interested in the self-driving space, in particular after having lost a few friends in motor vehicle accidents. I felt that if I was able to contribute to improving self-driving technology in cars, I could contribute towards making car travel more safe That was the big pull.

How did you find Level 5?

I made a list of five companies when I was ready to leave SpaceX, and Lyft was actually number one on that list. I did an analysis based on which companies were in the most strategic position to productize this technology and make it useful to society. I believe that ridesharing is that avenue. I chose Lyft because of the culture and the values it exudes. Lyft was the first and only self-driving car company I interviewed with.

What about the culture drew you to Lyft?

Lyft’s core values are shared very publicly and they resonate with me. They emphasize being yourself, driving impact and making it happen, and uplifting others. These are things that I live and strive to achieve every day.

Level 5 also has an active Black Employee Resource Group (ERG) called 5-Forward. Our mission is to encourage growth and community amongst Lyft’s black employees by driving the conversation around diversity engagement in tech forward. I’ve been involved in a number of Black ERGs throughout my career but this group is by far the most passionate, inspiring, proactive, and driven group I’ve been blessed to be a part of. We’re a diverse group with differing backgrounds and skill sets (from HR to marketing to hardware to software). You don’t see that often.

Whenever we have ideas to do something, like sending the group to the NSBE Convention or hosting our upcoming Black in Tech event, we rally and make it happen. We also have the attention and support of leadership within the organization to get the resources we need to reach our goals. It’s awesome.

What’s been your favorite project you’ve worked on at Level 5?

I’ve loved defining the architecture of our next generation vehicle platform; specifically, defining the safety requirements of this platform. I work to architect a system that ensures high integrity for safety-critical functions. The process of defining safety goals and objectives, breaking those down into core components, and making architectural changes to ensure we meet those requirements is the most exciting part of my job.

How has this role in self-driving been different than other systems engineering roles you’ve had in the past?

It’s been cool to come in early on self-driving technology. When I joined Level 5, the team was relatively small. Our size gave me freedom to make early-stage architectural decisions, which is amazing and I’m grateful for that opportunity.

Thinking about what the self-driving industry (and Level 5) is comprised of is also fascinating. We formed a brand new industry by hiring experts from other well-established industries: automotive experts who could build cars; experts from aerospace with vast experience in modeling, analytics, and developing complex systems; and people from Silicon Valley with rapid iteration mindsets who could write software and drive state-of-the-art computer science.

It’s a fascinating role for a systems engineer, because there’s no precedent or definition on how to build this product, and the industry is not yet defined. My past experiences are just an example, not a playbook for how to do things. I’m helping define an industry, which is new and exciting.

How do you approach that challenge?

It boils down to the fact that you have to make decisions. The key is to make a logical, data-driven decision, understand why you made it given the information you have at the time, and then be willing and open to adjust as you mature and get more data. You need to be willing to rapidly iterate and change.

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about a career in self-driving?

Be laser-focused on math and science. Understand the fundamentals of math, probability, physics, statistics, electronics, and computer architecture, and use that understanding to build things. When I was an undergrad, I was always working on some kind of project, hanging out in some kind of makerspace, or working on a hackathon. I found that was the best way to understand and refine my engineering intuition. The definition of engineer is to build. So build, build, build.

To set yourself apart as a great engineer (as opposed to just a good one), I would recommend these core values:

• Have a laser focus on First Principles problem solving
• Be data-driven in your decision making
• It’s OK to fail as long as you iterate and learn
• Question everything
• Take ownership (of projects, wins, fails — all of it)
• Document everything

What do you like most about your job?

To actually do R&D on a product, go out and test it, come back and refine and iterate in this rapid-moving cycle of progression is exciting. I’m always learning something new, and always pushing myself to the limit in terms of my understanding of science and math. We have the opportunity to go down a path and see how far rabbit holes take you, and that’s very exciting. We’re in a constant state of exploration.

Anything else you want to share?

I have two kids. My second son was born a month ago. I also love skateboarding. It’s what pushed me to be creative with my engineering. I’d set a crazy goal, and then break it down into steps that were tangible and work my way up until the goal was achieved. Say I wanted to grind on a nine-stair handrail — I may not have known how to do that, but I learned how to build up to it.

One quote I like is that “good ideas are always crazy until they’re not.” You have to break down a problem into its core truths and problem solve to build up to achieving it. That is a core asset to every engineer who wants to be successful in an ambiguous state.

Check back soon for more posts in our Employee Spotlight series, and see if there’s an opportunity at Level 5 for you here.