Self-driving cars are transformational technology, on the cutting-edge of robotics, machine learning, and engineering. Learn the skills and techniques used by self-driving car teams at the most advanced technology companies in the world.

Federal prosecutors charged Anthony Levandowski, the pioneering self-driving car engineer, with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google on Tuesday. The criminal indictment is the latest twist in a years-long dispute over intellectual property between Google, where Levandowski worked on autonomous vehicles for nearly a decade, and Uber, which purchased a self-driving startup from Levandowski for a reported $680m in August 2016. According to the criminal complaint, Levandowski downloaded approximately 14,000 files from Google and transferred them to his personal laptop in the months preceding his departure from Google – after he had begun discussions with executives at Uber. The files included "critical engineering information" about hardware for self-driving cars and "schematics for the printed circuit boards used in various custom Lidar products". Uber and Google's self-driving car spinoff, Waymo, reached a settlement in a civil lawsuit over the dispute in February 2018, four days into the trial.

The rush to develop self-driving cars is fueling lucrative deals for autonomous tech firms, from GM's $581 million purchase of Cruise, Uber's $680 million Otto acquisition and Ford's $1 billion Argo Ai project, made the founders of those startups wealthy. But in the epicenter of this particular race there's a tight supply of seasoned computer scientists and engineers needed to perfect the technology, giving rise to considerable salaries for top talent. Salaries in the Bay Area, including annual bonuses and equity, currently average $295,000 a year for top self-driving car engineers, and range from $232,000 to as much as $405,000, based on data from Paysa, a Palo Alto firm that analyzes pay and job trends using an artificial intelligence-enabled data platform. The average is more than four times the California median household income of $64,500 in 2015 and over five times the U.S. average, based on Census figures. Salaries are so high because the pool of talented engineers is somewhat limited right now, Paysa CEO Chris Bolte told Forbes.

Sure, the autonomous era will wipe out a lot of jobs. Automakers, tech titans, and startups are racing to essentially put four million truckers, cabbies and other drivers out of work. But like all radical technological shifts, self-driving cars will provide opportunities, too--for those with the right skills. Working in the most compelling part of this field requires an understanding of deep learning, the branch of artificial intelligence that trains computers to do things like discern pedestrians from lamp posts. Universities can't crank out graduates fast enough.