Autonomous electric truck developer Einride is hiring what's believed to be the world's first remote operator of driverless trucks.
The Swedish company, which describes itself as "part commercial enterprise, part revolutionary movement," says that it's looking for an experienced truck driver to pioneer an entirely new job category – shaping both the immediate work environment and the job description of tomorrow's truckers. 
"The operator will be responsible for remote-control driving of the Einride Pod, and training will incorporate safety and security protocols, basic remote driving instruction, and an extensive understanding of the technology behind the system."
Einride already has one of its driverless Pods working in a pilot project in a Swedish industrial area, moving freight for DB Schenker in a continuous flow operation between two freight hubs.
But currently, says Einride CEO and founder Robert Falck, "our autonomous Pods are operated by developers — robot engineers trained to drive trucks. 
"A commercially scalable solution must rely on truck drivers, trained to remote-operate robots.
"The ins-and-outs of that future are what we're investigating now, by involving truck drivers in the process."
The remote-control operator will go through an extensive safety and technology training programme and provide feedback to help develop Einride's remote driver station. 
The driver will work with Einride's development team for the rest of this year to optimise the Pod's operation and develop guidelines for future remote operators.
The driver, who will have to be proficient in Swedish and English, will work with Einride in Sweden.
But the company says it will also hire a remote-control driver in the United States in the third quarter of this year.
Einride says it believes it will have autonomous fleets in operation in Europe and USA "by 2022 to 2023."
It says that the use of its remote autonomous trucks has the potential to partially solve the severe global driver shortage and reduce fuel/energy costs by up to 70%, while also cutting operating costs by up to 60%, increasing productivity by 200%....and reducing CO2 emissions by up to 90%.
Falck says that the continuing development of autonomous vehicles "will place new demands on the workforce and raises questions about the future working environment of drivers/operators.
"We are excited to open up an entirely new category of jobs that will not only benefit the industry's current employees with improved hours, working conditions, and knowledge, but reinvigorate a dying employment sector for the next wave of job seekers."
Falck admits that there are still "concerns" to be overcome – scaling for industrialisation the foremost, but also legal and technical challenges, the latter mainly related to the lidars.
Meantime, global autonomous-driving tech company TuSimple has expanded its commercial operations for parcel service UPS in the United States to 20 trips a week.
The trucks – operating autonomously between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona – are achieving 10% fuel savings compared to manned trucks on the same runs, TuSimple says.
UPS Ventures made a pioneering investment in autonomous trucking by taking a stake in TuSimple last year. The addition of a second autonomous freight route and extra runs is a vote of confidence for TuSimple, it says.
It aims to demonstrate the first fully driverless commercial operation in 2021.