Principal Simulation Engine Architect

General Motors; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 296,000 - 454,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

GM vehicle discounts

Job summary

General Motors is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the Simulation Engine for autonomous driving validation. You will define architectural direction, align leaders across organizations, and drive measurable engineering outcomes that advance simulation platforms, RL environments, and developer tooling.

You will set standards for fidelity, performance, and reliability, mentor senior engineers, and influence executive-level decisions while shaping the autonomy software stack.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, or a related field.
• 12+ years of relevant software engineering experience, including ownership of complex, production-quality platforms or systems.
• Expert programming ability in modern C++ and Python, with deep expertise in OO design, software architecture, and systems engineering.
• Demonstrated record of defining technical strategy and delivering cross-functional initiatives with broad impact.
• Experience serving as an architectural authority across multiple teams, products, or engineering organizations.
• Strong ability to influence senior leaders and align organizations around long-term investments.
• Customer orientation with experience translating developer/ researcher needs into platform capabilities.
• Proven ability to improve engineering quality, velocity, reliability, or operational effectiveness at scale.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Define and champion the long-term technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for simulation, validation, and reinforcement learning infrastructure.
• Establish platform strategies enabling scalable, high-fidelity, deterministic, and performant simulation across the organization.
• Identify opportunities and risks, translating them into investments and execution plans.
• Lead cross-functional technical problem resolution spanning autonomy software, ML, validation, infrastructure, data, and tooling.
• Set direction for core simulation abstractions, APIs, execution models, and sensor modeling.
• Drive adoption of common platforms and practices to reduce fragmentation and increase velocity.
• Sponsor initiatives from strategy through delivery, adoption, and continuous improvement.
• Define measurable standards for fidelity, performance, reliability, determinism, scalability, and developer experience.

Skills

C++

Python

Software architecture

Systems engineering

Technical leadership

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, or related field

Job description

General Motors is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the Simulation Engine for autonomous driving validation. You will define architectural direction, align leaders across organizations, and drive measurable engineering outcomes that advance simulation platforms, RL environments, and developer tooling.

You will set standards for fidelity, performance, and reliability, mentor senior engineers, and influence executive-level decisions while shaping the autonomy software stack.