Staff Software Engineer

General Motors; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 189,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

General Motors is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the AV HIL Software Platforms team to design and scale high‑fidelity hardware‑in‑the‑loop validation platforms for AV software testing.

You will lead architectural direction, drive CI/CD, and ensure reliable platform services across multiple products, collaborating with AI, middleware, OS, and vehicle integration teams.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience designing, developing, and delivering production‑quality software systems with leadership in large initiatives.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field; Master’s/PhD preferred.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive long‑term technical strategy, architecture, and roadmap for AV HIL software platforms and integration services.
• Lead design and evolution of scalable, reliable, observable, hardware‑aware HIL capabilities across products.
• Own complex technical problems spanning AV software, AI models, hardware, and deployment pipelines.
• Mentor engineers and influence architectural decisions across the organization.
• Represent AV HIL Software Platforms in cross‑functional reviews and planning forums.

Skills

Python

C++

Distributed systems

Linux

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Engineering

Master’s or PhD preferred

Tools

ROS

Bazel

SQL

Job description

Job Description The AV HIL Software Platforms team in the GM Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Organization is responsible to develop and scale high-fidelity and reliable Hardware-in-Loop validation platforms to test AV software prior to deployment, to ensure enterprise usability, end-user functionality, and provide high quality, use case driven signals, such as AV Performance Validation and AV System Reliability. As a Staff Software Engineer on the AV HIL Software Platforms Team, you get to be at the intersection of AV software and AI models, and the hardware systems that are responsible for vehicle autonomy! You will have an opportunity to work on what it takes to run, deploy, and test on the next generation of GM AVs. This is a highly collaborative team with close collaboration with various teams within the core AV organization including AV Infrastructure, Embodied AI, AV/AI Platform, Model Deployment, Middleware, OS, Sensor Applications, and Vehicle Integration. This role blends expertise in Software development, software optimization, managing and deploying HIL Services as a PaaS, and hardware-aware engineering.

What you’ll be doing (Responsibilities)

• Define and drive the long-term technical strategy, architecture, and roadmap for AV HIL software platforms and integration services across multiple products, programs, and development organizations.
• Lead the design and evolution of highly scalable, reliable, observable, and hardware-aware HIL capabilities that support AV software validation from development through deployment.
• Establish architectural direction and technical standards for platform services, APIs, service reliability, test automation, performance, and operational excellence.
• Own the most complex, ambiguous, and business-critical technical problems spanning AV software, AI models, vehicle hardware, infrastructure, middleware, operating systems, and deployment pipelines.
• Translate organizational and customer needs into clear technical strategies, measurable outcomes, platform requirements, and incremental delivery plans.
• Influence technical decisions across the AV organization and build alignment among senior technical leaders, product stakeholders, and partner teams.
• Deliver reliable software and platforms through strong engineering practices, including requirements generation, design reviews, continuous integration, automated testing, observability, issue management, release readiness, and operational support.
• Identify opportunities to improve platform scalability, utilization, fidelity, developer productivity, and cost efficiency; define success metrics and drive sustained improvements.
• Serve as a hands‑on technical leader who contributes to critical software designs and implementations while raising the engineering quality of the broader organization.
• Mentor and develop engineers across experience levels, strengthen technical communities of practice, and help shape hiring and talent‑development strategies.
• Represent AV HIL Software Platforms in cross‑functional architecture reviews and technical planning forums, communicating complex trade‑offs clearly to technical and non‑technical audiences.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• 10+ years of experience designing, developing, and delivering production‑quality software systems, including significant experience leading large or highly complex technical initiatives.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field; Master’s or PhD preferred.
• Expert software engineering and systems fundamentals, with strong coding ability in Python, C++, or comparable languages.
• Demonstrated ability to define and execute technical strategy for complex, distributed, hardware‑software systems with broad organizational impact.
• Deep experience designing for scalability, performance, reliability, observability, maintainability, and operational excellence.
• Experience developing and operating software in a Linux environment and working effectively across the full software development lifecycle.
• Strong understanding of platform and service architecture, APIs, automation, CI/CD, test infrastructure, and production operations.
• Proven ability to lead through influence, resolve cross‑team dependencies, build alignment, and make sound decisions in ambiguous environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate architecture, risks, and trade‑offs to senior leadership.

What Will Give You A Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• Experience defining and scaling hardware‑in‑the‑loop, software‑in‑the‑loop, simulation, validation, or other large‑scale test and integration platforms.
• Experience optimizing and evaluating complex software systems on dedicated hardware, including performance profiling, resource management, latency analysis, and capacity planning.
• Experience with ROS or similar robotics architectures and distributed autonomy software stacks.
• Experience with low‑latency, real‑time, safety‑critical, or highly deterministic systems.
• Experience in the autonomous vehicle, automotive, robotics, embedded systems, or adjacent industries.
• Experience delivering platform‑as‑a‑service capabilities used by multiple engineering teams or product organizations.
• Experience with large build and dependency management systems such as Bazel.
• Experience with SQL and data systems used for test analytics, platform observability, or validation insights.
• Experience establishing engineering standards, platform governance, technical roadmaps, or architecture review processes.
• Demonstrated success mentoring senior engineers and influencing technical direction beyond a single team.

Compensation

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 NewYork, Colorado, California, or Washington.

The expected base compensation for this role is $189,300 -$290,000, Actual base compensation within the identified 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.

• medical
• dental
• vision
• Health Savings Account
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• retirement savings plan
• sickness and accident benefits
• life insurance
• paid vacation & holidays

This role is categorized as hybrid. The selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least 3 times a week {or other frequency dictated by their manager}. The selected candidate will be required to travel <25% for this role. This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.

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.

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Our Company

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