Automotive System Software Architect - Performance & Kernel

NVIDIA Corporation; Santa Clara (CA); Hybrid; USD 272,000 - 431,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits package

Job summary

NVIDIA Corporation in California seeks a Principal System Software Engineer to drive automotive platform software architecture, performance engineering, and system-level optimization. You will collaborate across hardware, kernel, AI, middleware, and platform teams to deliver high-performance, safety-critical software for NVIDIA automotive compute platforms.

The role requires deep technical expertise and 15+ years of hands-on experience across system software, embedded systems, and performance

Qualifications

• Bachelor's, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 15+ years of hands-on experience in systems software, embedded systems, platform software, kernel development, or performance engineering.
• Deep expertise in Linux system internals, kernel architecture, device drivers, and low-level system software development.
• Strong programming skills in C/C++ with experience in Python or scripting languages.
• Proven experience debugging and optimizing complex distributed or heterogeneous computing systems.
• Strong background in performance analysis and optimization across CPU, GPU, memory, storage, and interconnect subsystems.
• Experience with embedded Linux, RTOS, virtualization technologies, or multi-core system architectures.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically while remaining hands-on in development, debugging, and architecture activities.

Responsibilities

• Drive system software architecture and technical direction for next-generation automotive compute platforms.
• Lead performance optimization initiatives across CPU, GPU, memory, storage, networking, and platform subsystems.
• Design, develop, debug, and optimize low-level system software including kernel, drivers, middleware, runtime frameworks, and platform services.
• Collaborate with silicon, firmware, AI, and platform architecture teams to deliver optimized end-to-end solutions.
• Analyze complex system bottlenecks and develop scalable solutions to improve performance, reliability, determinism, and efficiency.
• Drive software bring-up, profiling, debugging, and performance tuning for new automotive platforms.
• Contribute hands-on to critical software development, architecture reviews, debugging, and system optimization efforts.
• Mentor engineers and help drive a culture of technical excellence, innovation, and execution.

Skills

C/C++

Python

Linux internals

Kernel development

Performance engineering

Debugging

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in CS/CE/EE or equivalent

Tools

Embedded Linux

RTOS

Virtualization

Job description

NVIDIA Corporation in California seeks a Principal System Software Engineer to drive automotive platform software architecture, performance engineering, and system-level optimization. You will collaborate across hardware, kernel, AI, middleware, and platform teams to deliver high-performance, safety-critical software for NVIDIA automotive compute platforms.

The role requires deep technical expertise and 15+ years of hands-on experience across system software, embedded systems, and performance