Principal Software Engineering - Build System Modernization

General Motors (GM); Markham; Hybrid; CAD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

GM Benefits

Job summary

General Motors (GM) in Markham, Ontario, is seeking a software engineering leader to modernize and scale build systems for software-defined vehicles. You will drive the migration from Make to Bazel, manage embedded software workflows, and establish scalable, secure infrastructure across CI/CD, testing, and releases.

The role requires 15+ years in software development, real-time architecture expertise, and strong Python plus tooling skills, with a focus on safety-critical automotive environments

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in software engineering or equivalent experience.
• 15+ years software development experience.
• Deep understanding of real-time software architecture.
• Experience shipping safety-critical products in automotive, embedded, safety-related environments.
• Proficiency in Python and at least one additional engineering-tooling language.
• Experience with AI-assisted developer productivity, coding agents, code intelligence, knowledge retrieval, or workflow orchestration.
• Evaluate AI-enabled engineering workflows using measurable quality, adoption, and productivity outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in fast-paced environments.
• Strong expertise building and maintaining production software systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead software engineering productivity and effectiveness by shaping strategies, improving processes, and guiding change.
• Mentor teams while balancing technical leadership with empathy.
• Modernize embedded-software build/test system by migrating to Bazel with scalable infrastructure across repositories, toolchains, CI/CD, testing, and release processes.
• Design reusable Bazel rules, macros, toolchains, platforms, configuration patterns, and repository standards for embedded software.
• Integrate Bazel with enterprise CI/CD, testing, release, artifact, deployment, observability, security, and infrastructure workflows; optimize with caching and reliability practices.
• Measure success by migrated repositories with build/test parity, faster builds, improved reproducibility, and higher developer adoption.

Skills

Python

Real-time systems

Software architecture

Leadership

AI-assisted tooling

Education

Bachelor's degree in software engineering

15+ years software development experience

Master’s or PhD (preferred)

Tools

Bazel

Make

CI/CD tooling

Python tooling

Job description

Job DescriptionVacancy Status:This posting is not for an existing vacancy within the organization and is open to new applications.AI Disclosure:As part of the application process, Artificial Intelligence will be used in the hiring process for this roleWork Arrangement :Hybrid: This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Markham or Oshawa office three times per week, at minimum.The Role:General Motors is seeking a software engineering leader to modernize and scale the build systems that support software-defined vehicles. This role will help lead the transition from a legacy Make-based system to Bazel, Google’s open-source build tool, improving speed, reliability, and robustness across the engineering organization. The successful candidate will drive this capability at scale, influence technical direction across teams, and help establish lofty platform capability goals.What You'll Do:Lead software engineering productivity and effectiveness by identifying opportunities, shaping strategies, improving processes, guiding change, and connecting initiatives to deliver greater value through innovation, learning, and simplification.Lead high-impact efforts hands-on, solve complex and unusual problems, and communicate effectively as a coach and mentor while balancing technical command with empathy.Modernize a large embedded-software build and test system by transitioning legacy Make- or shell-based workflows to Bazel and establishing scalable, reproducible, secure, and developer-friendly infrastructure across repositories, toolchains, CI/CD, testing, and release processes.Assess current build, test, dependency, toolchain, and hardware workflows to define a phased Bazel migration strategy and rollout model.Design and implement reusable Bazel rules, macros, toolchains, platforms, configuration patterns, and repository standards, while migrating embedded applications, libraries, generated code, firmware, cross-compilation flows, and platform variants with validated build parity and reproducibility.Integrate Bazel with enterprise CI/CD, testing, release, artifact, deployment, observability, security, and infrastructure workflows, and optimize the platform through caching, parallelism, reliability practices, documentation, training, legacy Make retirement, and continuous improvement.Measure success through target repositories migrated with validated build and test parity; faster clean and incremental builds, CI queues, and developer feedback; increased reproducibility, approved hermetic-toolchain adoption, cache effectiveness, and CI capacity; and lower build, pipeline, and flaky-test rates.Improve diagnosis and recovery time while ensuring complete artifact provenance, test evidence, and security-policy compliance for releases, strong developer adoption, reduced support burden, and measurable productivity improvement.Hold a bachelor’s degree in software engineering or have equivalent experience, along with 15 years of software development experience.Bring a deep understanding of real-time software architecture and experience shipping high-quality, safety-critical products in automotive, embedded, safety-related, calibration, or systems-engineering environments.Demonstrate exceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities, keen attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in fast-paced, action-oriented decision-making environments.Bring strong expertise building and maintaining production software systems, proficiency in Python and at least one additional engineering-tooling language, and experience with AI-assisted developer productivity, coding agents, code intelligence, knowledge retrieval, or workflow orchestration.Evaluate AI-enabled engineering workflows using measurable quality, adoption, and productivity outcomes.Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications):Bachelor's degree in software engineering or or equivalent experience10+ to 15+ years of experience in software developmentDeep understanding of software architecture for real time systemsExperience shipping high-quality safety critical productsExceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities, with a keen attention to detailDemonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment.Demonstrated ability to work in an action-oriented decision-making environmentStrong expertise building and maintaining production software systems, with proficiency in Python and at least one additional language used in engineering tooling environmentsAutomotive, embedded, safety-related, calibration, or systems-engineering environments.Large-scale migration from Make or shell-based build orchestration to Bazel.AI-assisted developer productivity, coding agents, code intelligence, knowledge retrieval, or workflow orchestration.Evaluation of AI-enabled engineering workflows using measurable quality, adoption, and productivity outcomes.Key Deliverables:Assess current Make-based build, test, dependency, toolchain, and hardware workflows, then define a phased Bazel migration strategy and rollout model.Design and implement reusable Bazel rules, macros, toolchains, platforms, configuration patterns, and repository standards for embedded software.Migrate embedded applications, libraries, generated code, firmware, cross-compilation flows, and platform variants while ensuring build parity and reproducibility.Integrate Bazel with enterprise CI/CD, testing, release, artifact, deployment, observability, security, and infrastructure workflows.Optimize and operationalize the platform through caching, parallelism, reliability practices, documentation, training, legacy Make retirement, and continuous improvement.Measures of Success:Target repositories migrated with validated build and test parity.Reduced clean and incremental build time, CI queue time, and developer feedback time.Increased reproducibility, approved hermetic-toolchain adoption, cache effectiveness, and CI capacity.Lower build, pipeline, and flaky-test rates, with improved diagnosis and recovery time.Complete artifact provenance, test evidence, and security-policy compliance for releases.Strong developer adoption, reduced support burden, and measurable productivity improvement.What Will Give You A Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications):Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, AI, or a related fieldExperience in embedded software development, automotive software, systems engineering, or safety-related toolchainsFamiliarity with GM engineering tools, engineering workflows, or internal platform environmentsExperience building AI assistants, coding agents, or domain-specific AI capabilities for engineersExperience with knowledge systems, vector search, ranking, workflow orchestration, or code intelligence platformsExperience supporting large engineering communities through reusable tools, templates, and automationExperience evaluating AI quality in production systems using measurable outcomes such as acceptance rate, time saved, precision and recall, hallucination reduction, or workflow completion rateGM DOES NOT PROVIDE IMMIGRATION-RELATED SPONSORSHIP FOR THIS ROLE. DO NOT APPLY FOR THIS ROLE IF YOU WILL NEED GM IMMIGRATION SPONSORSHIP NOW OR IN THE FUTURE.Benefits OverviewThe goal of the General Motors of Canada total rewards program is to support the health and well-being of you and your family. Our comprehensive compensation plan currently includes the following benefits, in addition to many others:Paid time off including vacation days, holidays, and supplemental benefits for pregnancy, parental and adoption leave;Healthcare, dental, and vision benefits;Life insurance plans to cover you and your family;Company and matching contributions to a Defined Contribution Pension plan to help you save for retirement;GM Vehicle Purchase Plan for you and your familyAbout GMOur vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.Why Join UsWe believe we all must make a choice every day – individually and collectively – to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment OpportunitiesGeneral Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire .AccommodationsGeneral Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us or call us at 1-800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.