Hiring self-driving car engineers is quickly turning into the tech industry’s biggest challenge.
On Thursday, online education company Udacity said that 10 more companies have signed up to hire graduates from its program on self-driving car technology. BMW (BMWYY), NextEV, LeEco, McLaren, and others are joining existing hiring partners like Mercedes Benz, Nvidia (NVDA), Otto (acquired by Uber), and Didi Chuxing.
News of Udacity’s self-driving car “nanodegree,” a small curriculum focused on a single topic, surfaced this summer, and the company opened up applications for the program in mid-September. Since then, it has received more than 13,000 applications from prospective students, the company said on Thursday.
The first cohort, made up of 500 students, will begin the program later this month. A second group, of 1,500 students, will start next month, and a group of 2,500 in December.
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Hiring for self-driving car technology jobs has seen an uptick recently. According to data from Indeed Hiring Lab recently published by Coins2Day, there are more than 100 companies looking to hire in that field, with more than 2,000 available job listings as of this month. General Motors (GM) took the top spot for the most job openings, followed by Google (GOOG) and Ford (F). Companies from ride-hailing companies Uber and Didi Chuxing as well as traditional and electric car makers, like Tesla (TSLA), are all diving into self-driving cars.