diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/tool/profiling/AutoTuner.scala b/core/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/tool/profiling/AutoTuner.scala
index 86909d98d..4241ac3c3 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/tool/profiling/AutoTuner.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/tool/profiling/AutoTuner.scala
@@ -1035,7 +1035,12 @@ object AutoTuner extends Logging {
     representer.getPropertyUtils.setSkipMissingProperties(true)
     val constructor = new Constructor(classOf[ClusterProperties], new LoaderOptions())
     val yamlObjNested = new Yaml(constructor, representer)
-    Option(yamlObjNested.load(clusterProps).asInstanceOf[ClusterProperties])
+    val loadedClusterProps = yamlObjNested.load(clusterProps).asInstanceOf[ClusterProperties]
+    if (loadedClusterProps != null && loadedClusterProps.softwareProperties == null) {
+      logInfo("softwareProperties is empty from input worker_info file")
+      loadedClusterProps.softwareProperties = new util.LinkedHashMap[String, String]()
+    }
+    Option(loadedClusterProps)
   }
 
   def loadClusterProps(filePath: String): Option[ClusterProperties] = {