Senior Software Engineer - AV Data & Analysis Tools

General Motors Company; Warren (MI); Remote; USD 145,000 - 261,000; Full time

Job summary

General Motors is seeking a senior software engineer to help build and own data tools for AV data at scale. You will design and ship end-to-end solutions that enable engineers to search, analyze, and debug autonomous-vehicle data across camera, lidar, and map views.

You will lead multi-project efforts, collaborate with perception researchers and test operators, and mentor teammates while improving tooling performance, tests, and developer experience.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3+ years building complex, data-intensive web applications with TypeScript/JavaScript and React.
• A track record of spotting an unmet user need yourself, building the tool or feature that addressed it, and driving it to real adoption.
• Hands-on experience building on both SQL and vector databases, including data modeling, indexing, and query performance (e.g., PostgreSQL or BigQuery, and Vespa, Milvus, pgvector, or OpenSearch).
• Comfort working across the stack, designing APIs and building services in Node.js or Python.
• Deep experience diagnosing and fixing web application performance problems (rendering, memory, large-data and streaming throughput) through profiling and measurement.
• Demonstrated technical leadership: leading multi-person projects, writing design docs, and driving decisions across teams.
• Clear written and verbal communication with technical users whose needs differ widely, from perception researchers to test operators.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Find the highest-leverage gaps in how engineers find, analyze, and debug AV data. Work alongside users, read support channels and bug reports, and notice where teams are building their own workarounds. Then turn those gaps into tools people adopt.
• Record and catalog new AV data as it arrives, with the context engineers need to trust and use it: vehicle, software version, location, and ingestion status.
• Index and mine road data alongside simulation output. Build search that combines structured metadata queries in SQL with embedding-based similarity search in vector databases, plus natural-language queries and LLM- and VLM-powered curation.
• Build high-performance tools for analyzing what happened, with synchronized replay of camera video, lidar, 3D scenes, plots, and maps. Engineers use them to triage and diagnose issues, to validate new software changes, and to debug live in the vehicle during testing.
• Take ambiguous requests from idea to shipped. Write requirements and design docs that weigh options, build consensus with stakeholders, and deliver iteratively so users are unblocked early.
• Serve as technical lead for a multi-project workstream. Plan and break down the work, delegate, hold a high bar in design and code reviews, and guide engineers across GM who contribute to our tools.
• Keep tools fast and reliable in production, and raise the bar for the team's engineering systems: tests, CI speed, developer experience, observability, and on-call.
• Mentor engineers, and use AI-assisted development and agentic workflows to multiply what a small team can deliver.

Skills

Software engineering

TypeScript/React

SQL and vector DBs

APIs & services

Performance diagnostics

Technical leadership

Communication

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Tools

Vespa

Milvus

pgvector

OpenSearch

Job description

Job Description

General Motors is a global leader in advanced driver assistance. With Super Cruise hands-free technology in more than 500,000 Super Cruise–equipped vehicles on the road and over 700 million hands-free miles driven, GM is proving that automation can be trusted, intuitive, and helpful. GM has the global reach to bring cutting-edge advances to everyday drivers at unprecedented scale. Join us to help deliver the next generation of safe and delightful personal autonomous vehicle experiences.

About The Team

Every autonomous-driving engineer at GM eventually asks the same questions: What happened on that drive? Where else has this happened? Why did the vehicle do that? Did my change fix it?

The AV Analysis team builds the tools that answer them, across the full life of AV data:

• Record and catalog new data as it comes in from the fleet, so engineers know what exists, where it came from, and whether it's ready to use.
• Index and mine road data alongside simulation output, so engineers can find the scenes that matter using structured filters, similarity search, and natural-language queries.
• Analyze what happened by replaying sensor data, perception output, and planner decisions in synchronized 3D, camera, plot, and map views. Engineers do this to triage and diagnose an issue, or to validate a new change.

Perception, planning, simulation, mapping, validation, and data teams use these tools every day. That work spans next-generation autonomous development vehicles, Super Cruise programs, and autonomous mobile robots in GM factories. We're part of AV Tooling, which also builds GM's fleet-operations tools and AI-assisted triage. We share one goal: shorten the loop from collecting data, to understanding it, to fixing the vehicle.

About The Role

Our senior engineers don't wait for a spec. Demand for our tools outpaces any roadmap, so the most valuable thing you'll do is decide what to build. That means finding the problem that's quietly costing engineers hours every week, designing the tool that removes it, and shipping it. You'll own a major part of the data lifecycle end to end, such as how engineers search and mine data, or how they analyze and debug it. You'll also help connect cataloging, search, and analysis into one workflow.

What You’ll Do

• Find the highest-leverage gaps in how engineers find, analyze, and debug AV data. Work alongside users, read support channels and bug reports, and notice where teams are building their own workarounds. Then turn those gaps into tools people adopt.
• Record and catalog new AV data as it arrives, with the context engineers need to trust and use it: vehicle, software version, location, and ingestion status.
• Index and mine road data alongside simulation output. Build search that combines structured metadata queries in SQL with embedding-based similarity search in vector databases, plus natural-language queries and LLM- and VLM-powered curation.
• Build high-performance tools for analyzing what happened, with synchronized replay of camera video, lidar, 3D scenes, plots, and maps. Engineers use them to triage and diagnose issues, to validate new software changes, and to debug live in the vehicle during testing.
• Take ambiguous requests from idea to shipped. Write requirements and design docs that weigh options, build consensus with stakeholders, and deliver iteratively so users are unblocked early.
• Serve as technical lead for a multi-project workstream. Plan and break down the work, delegate, hold a high bar in design and code reviews, and guide engineers across GM who contribute to our tools.
• Keep tools fast and reliable in production, and raise the bar for the team's engineering systems: tests, CI speed, developer experience, observability, and on-call.
• Mentor engineers, and use AI-assisted development and agentic workflows to multiply what a small team can deliver.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3+ years building complex, data-intensive web applications with TypeScript/JavaScript and React.
• A track record of spotting an unmet user need yourself, building the tool or feature that addressed it, and driving it to real adoption.
• Hands‑on experience building on both SQL and vector databases, including data modeling, indexing, and query performance (e.g., PostgreSQL or BigQuery, and Vespa, Milvus, pgvector, or OpenSearch).
• Comfort working across the stack, designing APIs and building services in Node.js or Python.
• Deep experience diagnosing and fixing web application performance problems (rendering, memory, large-data and streaming throughput) through profiling and measurement.
• Demonstrated technical leadership: leading multi-person projects, writing design docs, and driving decisions across teams.
• Clear written and verbal communication with technical users whose needs differ widely, from perception researchers to test operators.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• Depth in search and retrieval: multimodal embeddings (e.g., CLIP- or SigLIP-style image–text models), hybrid ranking that blends vector similarity with structured filters, and measuring search relevance.
• Building LLM-, VLM-, or agent-based features into products, and fluency with AI-assisted development tools.
• 3D and GPU-accelerated graphics in the browser (WebGL, three.js, regl), and map visualization (deck.gl, Mapbox GL).
• Browser media and concurrency APIs: WebCodecs (H.264 video), Web Workers, OffscreenCanvas, WebAssembly.
• Robotics or AV data: ROS/ROS 2, rosbag or MCAP, Protobuf, and Apache Arrow or Parquet, plus visualizing or debugging time-series sensor data (camera, lidar, radar).
• Data ingestion and cataloging at scale: metadata, provenance, and lineage for large sensor datasets; workflow engines such as Temporal; Kubernetes and Google Cloud.
• Owning internal developer tools in production: SLOs, monitoring, incident response, and on‑call.

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 $144,700 to $261,300. 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

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}. The selected candidate will be required to travel <25% for this role. Relocation benefits are available for candidates who qualify under company policy.

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 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.

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.

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.

Accommodations

General 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.