Sr. / Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure (Autonomy)

DiDi; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 339,000; Full time

Job summary

DiDi's autonomous driving unit seeks an experienced Sr. Software Engineer / Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure, to steer the architecture of the core platform powering our autonomous driving software stack.

You will shape the technical roadmap for high-performance middleware, custom compiler tooling, onboard toolchains, and large-scale simulation frameworks, collaborating with Autonomy and Simulation teams to ensure stability and scalable developer productivity.

Qualifications

• 6–10+ years of software engineering in real-time systems or autonomous platforms.
• Expert in C++ on Linux with low-latency IPC/middleware experience.
• Proven leadership across multi-team initiatives and production deployments.

Responsibilities

• Lead architectural vision for low-latency IPC messaging middleware and runtime engines.
• Own build infrastructure, toolchains, and compiler strategies to boost velocity.
• Architect simulation platforms and automated diagnostic toolchains for crash triage.
• Drive performance profiling, memory optimizations, and latency reductions across stacks.
• Mentor engineers and establish architecture guidelines across teams.

Skills

C++

Real-time systems

Linux

Multithreading

IPC/middleware

Compiler internals

Build systems

ccatch

Education

Bachelor's or higher in CS/CE/SE

Tools

Bazel

CMake

ccatch

eBPF

GDB

Job description

About The Company

DiDi's autonomous driving unit was established in 2016 with the mission of developing Level 4 autonomous driving (AD) technology to make transportation safer and more efficient. In August 2019, the unit became an independent company, DiDi Autonomous Driving, dedicated to advanced AD R&D, product application, and business expansion. We believe integrating AD technology into a shared-mobility fleet will generate immense social value. By leveraging DiDi's specialized technology, operational expertise, and integrated ecosystem, we are positioned to build and operate a highly efficient, user-oriented autonomous fleet.

About The Company

DiDi's autonomous driving unit was established in 2016 with the mission of developing Level 4 autonomous driving (AD) technology to make transportation safer and more efficient. In August 2019, the unit became an independent company, DiDi Autonomous Driving, dedicated to advanced AD R&D, product application, and business expansion. We believe integrating AD technology into a shared-mobility fleet will generate immense social value. By leveraging DiDi's specialized technology, operational expertise, and integrated ecosystem, we are positioned to build and operate a highly efficient, user-oriented autonomous fleet.

About The Role

We are seeking an experienced Sr. Software Engineer / Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure to lead the architecture and evolution of the core platform powering our autonomous driving software stack. In this role, you will define the technical roadmap for our high-performance middleware, custom compiler infrastructure (including ccatch), onboard toolchains, and large-scale simulation frameworks (ezsim and automated crash triage). As a technical leader, you will collaborate closely with Autonomy and Simulation teams to maximize platform stability, enforce systemic engineering standards, and accelerate cross-team developer productivity at scale.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architectural vision, design, and implementation of next-generation, low-latency, high-throughput IPC messaging middleware and runtime execution engines for onboard systems.
• Own end-to-end build infrastructure, toolchains, and compiler execution strategies (including ccatch and distributed build caching) to optimize developer velocity and software deployment pipelines.
• Architect robust, deterministic simulation platforms (ezsim) and build automated post-mortem diagnostic toolchains for rapid simulator crash triaging, core dump analysis, and systemic fault isolation.
• Drive cross-functional performance profiling, memory optimization, and latency reductions across the full autonomous driving software stack on embedded hardware platforms.
• Act as a crucial infrastructure domain expert for onboard teams, guiding software design for maximum efficiency, flexibility, scalability, and reliability across our evolving autonomy stack.
• Continuously elevate internal development tools, diagnostic systems, and engineering workflows to maximize developer velocity while maintaining tight control over system complexity and runtime stability.
• Technical leadership: Mentor engineers, set high engineering standards, lead technical design reviews, and establish foundational architecture guidelines across cross-functional teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or higher degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or a closely related technical field.
• 6–10+ years of software engineering experience designing, architecting, and maintaining complex real-time systems, Linux systems infrastructure, or autonomous driving platforms in C++.
• Proven track record of technical leadership, system architecture, and driving complex, multi-team engineering initiatives from inception to production deployment.
• Expert-level understanding of C++, system programming, multi-threading, concurrency models, and low-latency IPC/middleware architectures.
• Deep knowledge of compiler internals (Clang/GCC, LLVM), build systems (Bazel/CMake), and compilation optimization tools (including caching systems like ccatch).
• Proven capability in debugging complex system-level faults, kernel/user-space crashes, memory corruption, and race conditions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience architecting or extending core simulation execution platforms (ezsim), evaluation frameworks, and automated crash triaging pipelines for robotics or autonomous driving.
• Recognized domain expertise in embedded systems, cross-compilation target setups (e.g., QNX, Linux RT, NVIDIA Orin), and hardware acceleration layer integrations.
• Deep experience in low-level systems profiling (e.g., eBPF, gperf), customized memory allocators, or custom IPC protocol design.
• Demonstrated history of building developer productivity tools, developing quantitative software evaluation metrics, and driving root-cause analysis in complex robotic environments.

The base salary range for this full-time position is $169,783 - $338,694 annually in addition to bonus, equity and benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.