Software Engineering Manager (Autonomous Vehicle Data)

General Motors Company; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

General Motors Company seeks an experienced Software Engineering Manager to lead the AV Data Processing and Services team. You will guide distributed systems, data infrastructure, and platform software engineers building core pipelines and storage backbones for petabyte-scale telemetry.

You will balance cloud infrastructure with AI/ML workflows, driving high performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency across AWS/Azure/GCP services and data services.

Qualifications

• BA or BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or another relevant field
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience in distributed systems, big data platforms, or cloud infrastructure, with 2+ years in formal engineering leadership
• Experience designing, operating, and scaling petabyte-scale distributed data pipelines and storage systems (e.g., Apache Spark, Beam, Ray, Flink, Kafka, Iceberg, Delta Lake, and/or Presto/Trino)
• Expert-level proficiency in C++, Python, Rust or Go, with a proven track record of distributed systems design and implementation
• Experience deploying and managing services in major cloud providers (Azure, AWS or GCP) with automation and observability
• Proven ability translating complex cross-functional requirements into dependable technical roadmaps and deliverables

Responsibilities

• Hands-On Engineering Delivery: contribute to technical design, implementation, and delivery while mentoring the team
• People & Team Leadership: recruit, mentor, and grow a high-performing software and data engineering team
• Technical Strategy & Roadmap: own the vision and roadmap for AV Data services, including batch and streaming tools
• Efficiency & Infrastructure Economics: optimize cloud compute and storage to balance performance and cost
• Reliability & Observability: establish SLAs, monitoring, data lineage, testing, and incident management

Skills

Distributed systems

Big data platforms

Cloud infrastructure

People leadership

C++, Python, Rust, Go

Automation & observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/EE/Math/Physics

Tools

Apache Spark

Beam

Ray

Flink

Kafka

Iceberg

Delta Lake

Presto/Trino

Job description

Job Description

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Software Engineering Manager to lead our AV Data Processing and Services team. In this role, you will lead a world-class team of distributed systems, data infrastructure, and platform software engineers building the core pipelines and storage backbones that transform and serve petabyte-scale autonomous vehicle telemetry.

Your platform directly powers GM’s perception, planning, ML training, safety metrics, and simulation loops. You will sit at the intersection of cloud distributed infrastructure and downstream AI/ML pipelines, balancing operational rigor, high throughput, and cost-efficient cloud architecture.

What You’ll Do

• Hands-On Engineering Delivery: Serve as a player-coach, contributing directly to technical design, implementation, and delivery while mentoring and guiding the broader engineering team.
• People & Team Leadership: Recruit, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of software and data engineers. Foster a culture of engineering excellence, code quality, and ownership.
• Technical Strategy & Roadmap: Own the vision and architectural roadmap for the AV Data services including batch inference processing tools and streaming services for replay/simulation tools.
• Efficiency & Infrastructure Economics: Optimize cloud compute and storage footprint (AWS/Azure/GCP, S3 tiering, distributed caches) to balance high query performance with cost efficiencies.
• Reliability & Observability: Establish production-grade SLAs, monitoring, data lineage, and automated testing across all data services. Own incident management and root-cause analysis for mission-critical platform outages.

Required Qualifications

• BA or BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or another relevant field; or equivalent real-world experience.
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience in distributed systems, big data platforms, or cloud infrastructure, with 2+ years in formal engineering leadership.
• Demonstrated experience designing, operating, and scaling petabyte-scale distributed data pipelines and storage systems (e.g., Apache Spark, Beam, Ray, Flink, Kafka, Iceberg, Delta Lake, and/or Presto/Trino).
• Expert-level proficiency in C++, Rust, Go or Python, with a proven track record of designing and implementing robust, distributed systems.
• Expertise in deployment and managing services in at least one major public cloud provider (Azure, GCP or AWS) utilizing automation and observability for operational excellence
• Proven track record of translating complex, ambiguous cross-functional requirements into dependable technical roadmaps and reliable software deliverables.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in implementing Data Platform services including catalog, indexing, planning, pruning and optimization paths in a PB-scale environment
• Passionate about self-driving technology and its potential impact on the world.
• Comfortable delivering in a polyglot programming environment.
• Experience delivering data-intensive distributed compute architectures. GM does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. Do not apply for this role if you will need GM immigration sponsorship now or in the future. This includes direct company sponsorship, entry of GM as the immigration employer of record on a government form, and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g., H1-B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc).This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least 3 times a week {or other frequency dictated by their manager}.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.

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.

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.