Senior Staff Software Engineer OTA

Lincoln Motor Company; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 167,000 - 317,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Flexible family care days

Vehicle discount program

Job summary

Ford Motor Company in Palo Alto is hiring for a leadership-level software engineer to own the OTA update engine for in-vehicle systems. You will write production Rust, or demonstrate strong C++ expertise, across Linux environments, collaborating with embedded, vehicle, and cloud teams.

Role requires 5+ years in software, strong async/Tokio knowledge, and experience with state machines and CI/CD. Hybrid onsite four days a week; visa sponsorship available.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years software engineering experience, with 3+ years writing production Rust, or strong C++ expertise.
• Strong command of async programming, including the Tokio runtime and concurrent system design.
• Solid Linux systems experience–develop, debug, and operate software in Linux environments.
• Experience designing and implementing state machines for distributed or embedded systems.
• Strong testing discipline: unit, integration, and mock-driven testing.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and modern build systems.
• Excellent written communication — you write documentation your teammates actually read.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the OTA software update engine.
• Design and implement reliable, safe update orchestration logic.
• Write production-quality async Rust with a focus on correctness, safety, and maintainability.
• Build and contribute to developer tooling for software update deployments.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, container infrastructure, and multi-target build systems.
• Participate in code review with a high signal-to-noise bar: focus on correctness and reliability.
• Collaborate across embedded firmware, vehicle software, and cloud infrastructure teams to coordinate update flows end-to-end.

Skills

Rust

C++

Async programming

Linux

State machines

Testing

CI/CD

Documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering

Tools

Yocto/BitBake

Job description

We made history and now we work to transform the future – for our customers, our communities and our families. You'll see your work on the road every day, helping people move freely and pursue their dreams. At Ford, you can build more than vehicles. Come build what matters.

Ford’s Electric Vehicles, Digital and Design (EVDD) team is charged with delivering the company’s vision of a fully electric transportation future. EVDD is customer-obsessed, entrepreneurial, and data-driven and is dedicated to delivering industry-leading customer experience for electric vehicle buyers and owners. You’ll join an agile team of doers pioneering our EV future by working collaboratively, staying focused on only what matters, and delivering excellence day in and day out. Join us to make positive change by helping build a better world where every person is free to move and pursue their dreams.

In this position…

You'll be a core contributor to the In-Vehicle OTA Platform, building the software that will keep Ford's Universal Electric Vehicle fleet up to date. Our OTA software update service is a Rust application responsible for orchestrating vehicle software updates, managing complex multi-stage lifecycles across download, verification, installation, and activation across many ECUs. Your work ships to real vehicles on real roads.

What you'll do

• Own and evolve the OTA software update engine.
• Design and implement reliable, safe update orchestration logic.
• Write production-quality async Rust with a focus on correctness, safety, and maintainability.
• Build and contribute to cutting-edge developer tooling that lets engineers create and manage software update deployments.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, container infrastructure, and multi-target build systems.
• Participate in code review with a high signal-to-noise bar: focus on correctness and reliability.
• Collaborate across embedded firmware, vehicle software, and cloud infrastructure teams to coordinate update flows end-to-end.

You’ll have

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a closely related discipline
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with 3+ years writing production Rust, or strong, demonstrable C++ expertise with a clear appetite to work in Rust.
• Strong command of async programming, including the Tokio runtime and concurrent system design.
• Solid Linux systems experience–you are comfortable developing, debugging, and operating software in Linux environments.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing state machines for distributed or embedded systems.
• Strong testing discipline: unit, integration, and mock-driven testing.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and modern build systems.
• Excellent written communication — you write documentation your teammates actually read.

Even better, you may have

• Experience with automotive systems, OTA software updates, or vehicle ECU communication protocols such as UDS, CAN, or LIN.
• Familiarity with Yocto/BitBake for embedded Linux image builds and cross-compilation.
• Background in serialization strategies and schema evolution for distributed systems.
• Cross-compilation experience for embedded or constrained targets.
• Experience packaging and distributing developer tooling to engineering teams.
• Experience in regulated industries where software reliability and traceability are required (automotive, medical, aerospace).
• Comfort working alongside AI coding agents and integrating AI-assisted workflows into day-to-day engineering.

As an established global company, we offer the benefit of choice. You can choose what your Ford future will look like: will your story span the globe, or keep you close to home? Will your career be a deep dive into what you love, or a series of new teams and new skills? Will you be a leader, a changemaker, a technical expert, a culture builder…or all of the above? No matter what you choose, we offer a work life that works for you, including:

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

This position is a leadership level 5 and ranges from $167,200-$316,600.

Final determination of salary grade will be based on candidate's skills and experience, and base salary will be set within the applicable range according to job scope, responsibility and competitive market value.

Visa sponsorship is available for this position.

Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status or protected veteran status. In the United States, if you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability, please call 1-888-336-0660.

This position is hybrid with a requirement to be onsite four or more days per week.