Engineering Manager Observability

General Motors; Warren (MI); On-site; USD 219,000 - 335,000; Full time

Job summary

General Motors seeks an Engineering Manager to lead the AV Observability team within the AV Developer Productivity group. The role focuses on delivering an observability platform with logs, metrics, and traces, guiding instrumentation, and driving reliability across the GM AV software stack.

You will manage a team of engineers, balance business needs with user experience, and shape the long-term technical strategy while collaborating with AI/ML, firmware, and infrastructure teams to scale

Qualifications

• 7+ years of proven leadership managing software or SRE teams.
• Deep understanding of logs, metrics, traces; experience with Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry.
• Strong background in distributed systems, cloud-native apps and microservices.
• Familiarity with Go, Python, TypeScript; code review and architecture decisions.
• Experience with modern cloud offerings (GCP/AWS/Azure) and CI/CD, Kubernetes, Docker.
• Excellent communication to collaborate with diverse teams.
• Knowledge of SLIs/SLOs and observability pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of engineers; conduct performance reviews and coaching.
• Define and execute the observability platform's technical vision and roadmap.
• Provide guidance on instrumentation, logging, metrics, and tracing for visibility.
• Ensure rapid incident detection, debugging, and resolution to minimize downtime.
• Collaborate with AI/ML, firmware, and infra teams to improve reliability.
• Oversee internal tools and data pipelines to analyze telemetry at scale.
• Manage relationships and costs with third-party observability software.

Skills

Management experience

Observability

Software architecture

Go/Python/TS

Cloud infrastructure

Communication

GCP/AWS/Azure

Tools

Prometheus

Grafana

OpenTelemetry

Log management

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

Job description

Job Description

The AV Developer Productivity organization is responsible for delivering and maintaining the tools and services engineers here at GM use every day to do their best work and drive our autonomous vehicle program forward.

Tools and services we work on enhancing the entire development process of engineers at GM — how/where code is checked out, modified, compiled, tested, merged, and eventually deployed.

Our goal is to ensure our AV engineers and others here have world class tools and a seamless development experience so that they can focus on the problems that matter most in their domain.

The Role

We are looking for an Engineering Manager with an extensive engineering background, experience using a variety of developer tools and technologies, and who is passionate about developer productivity.

As a leader on this team, we are looking for someone who cares deeply about the technical development of other engineers on the team and is able to effectively balance the needs and priorities of the business, our users, and the growth of our engineers.

This person will start delivering impact through observability frameworks and will evolve depending on business needs but they will be expected to identify high ROI investments with minimal guidance.

The Team

As a part of AV Developer Productivity, the AV Observability team is responsible for creating and maintaining a robust, reliable, and cohesive observability offering for AV developers and leaders across GM to optimize internal and external system performance and reliability.

We achieve this through a combination of internally developed tools, vendor tools, and agentic AI workflows.

What You’ll Do

• Team leadership: Manage and grow a team of engineers, conducting performance reviews, providing coaching, and supporting career development.
• Technical strategy: Define and execute the technical vision and roadmap for the observability platform, ensuring it provides actionable insights into complex systems.
• Architectural oversight: Provide technical guidance on instrumentation, logging, metrics, and tracing to ensure comprehensive visibility across GM’s AV software stack.
• Incident response: Ensure the team's tools enable rapid detection, debugging, and resolution of unknown or unforeseen system failures to minimize downtime.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Work with other engineering teams—such as those developing AI/ML, firmware, and infrastructure—to implement observability practices and improve system reliability.
• Platform development: Lead the development of internal tools and data pipelines to collect, analyze, and visualize telemetry data at a massive scale.
• Vendor management: Manage relationships and costs associated with third-party observability software and platforms.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• Management experience: 7+ years of proven leadership experience managing software or site reliability engineering (SRE) teams
• Observability expertise: Deep understanding of core observability pillars: logs, metrics, and traces. Experience with technologies like Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, and log management systems is crucial
• Software architecture: Strong background in designing, developing, and architecting distributed systems, cloud-native applications, and microservices
• Programming proficiency: Familiarity with Go, Python, Typescript or similar along with software development practices to inform code reviews and architectural decisions
• Cloud infrastructure: Experience with modern cloud offerings like GCP, AWS, or Azure and technologies like CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, and Docker
• Communication skills: Excellent interpersonal and communication skills to collaborate effectively with diverse teams and stakeholders
• Relevant Technologies: GCP, Go, Python, Typescript, OpenTelemetry

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• Experience working with GCP, AWS, or Azure
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Docker, Istio, Terraform, Prometheus, Grafana, TSDBs and observability pipelines (e.g. either for logging or metrics or tracing)
• Skilled in defining and instrumenting SLIs and SLOs
• Own or contribute to Open Source projects
• Passion for self-driving technology and its potential impact on the world

Compensation

The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws.

The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of New York, Colorado, California, or Washington.

The salary range for this role: is $218,800- $335,300. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.

Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.

Benefits

GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs.

Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.

Company Vehicle

Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate.

Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.

This role is based remotely, but if the selected candidate lives within a specific mile radius of a GM hub, they will be expected to report to the location three times a week {or other frequency dictated by your manager}.

This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.

About GM

Our 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 Us

We 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.

Benefits Overview

From day one, we're looking out for your well-being–at work and at home–so you can focus on realizing your ambitions.

Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.

Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)

General Motors is committed to 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.

All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.

Accommodations

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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.

We are leading the change to make our world better, safer and more equitable for all through our actions and how we behave.

Our Company

Our Culture

How we hire

Our diverse team of employees bring their collective passion for engineering, technology and design to deliver on our vision of a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion.

We are looking for adventure-seekers and imaginative thought leaders to help us transform mobility.

Explore our global locations

We are determined to lead change for the world through technology, ingenuity and harnessing the creativity of our diverse team.

Join us to help lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all by becoming a member of GM’s Talent Community (beamery.com).