Staff Software Engineer, AI for Developer Productivity

General Motors Company; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 160,000 - 246,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

GM employee discounts

Paid vacation & holidays

Job summary

General Motors Company is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to advance AI-powered developer productivity across embedded software tooling. You will shape AI capabilities, drive production-ready solutions, and partner with CI/CD, virtualization, and engineering teams to boost throughput and reliability.

The role emphasizes leadership without formal authority, architecture sign-off, and guiding cross-functional initiatives across GM’s toolchain.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, developer tooling, platform engineering, ML engineering, AI.
• Strong expertise building and shipping production software systems, with Python and at least one other engineering tool language.
• Experience applying AI/LLM approaches to engineering problems like code analysis, workflow automation, or developer productivity.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision for AI-powered productivity across engineering tools and workflows.
• Design, develop, and deliver AI-powered solutions that reduce manual effort and accelerate issue resolution.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to translate AI use cases into scalable products and platforms.
• Lead architecture decisions for AI systems including access, orchestration, evaluation, and security.
• Drive productionization of AI capabilities in GM engineering environments including CI/CD and internal platforms.

Skills

Python

LLM-based AI

Dev tooling

APIs

observability

Education

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

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Cloud services

Containerization

CI/CD platforms

Job description

We are seeking a highly skilled Staff Software Engineer to join the Virtualization & Embedded Software Development Tools organization.

In this role, you will apply artificial intelligence to improve developer productivity, modernize engineering workflows, and advance toolchain capabilities across embedded software development. You will shape and deliver practical, production-grade AI capabilities that help engineers build, test, analyze, troubleshoot, and support complex software systems more effectively at scale.

This role is ideal for a recognized technical expert who thrives in ambiguity, works independently with broad latitude, influences key technical decisions, and leads large cross-functional efforts with broad visibility. You will partner across CI/CD, virtualization, systems engineering, calibration, platform, and software development teams to identify high-value opportunities and turn them into scalable solutions that improve engineering throughput, reliability, and user experience.

Our organization supports the end-to-end engineering toolchain that enables teams to define, develop, validate, calibrate, and release embedded software and systems. That includes engineering tools, build and test workflows, dashboards, automation, integrations, and engineering support platforms. As part of this team, you will help define how AI can be used responsibly and effectively in real engineering environments to improve speed, quality, and user experience.

What you’ll do

• Define the technical vision for AI-powered developer productivity capabilities across engineering tools and workflows
• Design, develop, and deliver AI-powered solutions that reduce manual effort, accelerate issue resolution, and improve software quality across development, debugging, test analysis, issue triage, documentation, and engineering support workflows
• Partner with cross-functional teams to identify high-value AI use cases and translate them into scalable products, platforms, and reusable capabilities
• Integrate AI-powered capabilities into engineering tools, workflows, and automation platforms in ways that improve reliability, usability, and adoption
• Lead architecture and implementation decisions for AI systems spanning model access, orchestration, retrieval, evaluation, observability, security, and enterprise integration
• Drive productionization of AI capabilities within GM engineering environments, including cloud-hosted services, internal platforms, CI/CD systems, and developer tools
• Establish technical standards and best practices for responsible use of AI in engineering tools, including quality, traceability, maintainability, and cybersecurity considerations
• Serve as a subject matter expert and technical leader across organizational boundaries, influencing roadmaps, solution direction, and implementation priorities
• Mentor engineers on AI system design, prompt and workflow design, evaluation strategies, and toolchain integration without formal people-leader responsibility
• Present strategy, progress, recommendations, and demonstrations to technical leaders and partner organizations
  

Additional job description

Your skills and abilities (required qualifications)

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, developer tooling, platform engineering, machine learning engineering, applied AI, or a closely related field
• Strong expertise building and shipping production software systems, with proficiency in Python and at least one additional language used in engineering tooling environments
• Demonstrated expertise applying AI and LLM-based approaches to engineering problems such as code analysis, workflow automation, knowledge retrieval, summarization, troubleshooting, or developer productivity support
• Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, system design, APIs, data flows, observability, and production operations
• Experience integrating AI-powered capabilities into enterprise platforms, engineering tools, or CI/CD systems
• Experience with cloud services, containerization, and orchestration technologies
• Strong knowledge of secure engineering practices and responsible AI guardrails
• Demonstrated success leading technically ambiguous, cross-functional efforts from concept through production deployment
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction across teams without formal authority
• Experience with developer platforms, build systems, testing systems, or internal engineering tools
• Experience balancing fast experimentation with production reliability, maintainability, and compliance
  

What can give you a competitive edge (preferred qualifications)

• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, AI, or a related field
• Experience in embedded software development, automotive software, systems engineering, or safety-related toolchains
• Experience with CI/CD platforms, build and test orchestration, and software quality automation
• Familiarity with GM engineering tools, engineering workflows, or internal platform environments
• Experience building AI assistants, coding agents, or domain-specific AI capabilities for engineers
• Experience with knowledge systems, vector search, ranking, workflow orchestration, or code intelligence platforms
• Experience supporting large engineering communities through reusable tools, templates, and automation
• Experience evaluating AI quality in production systems using measurable outcomes such as acceptance rate, time saved, precision and recall, hallucination reduction, or workflow completion rate
• Experience designing retrieval-augmented or tool-using AI workflows
• Experience integrating AI into GitHub-based engineering workflows or related enterprise automation pipelines
  

Why join us

This is an opportunity to shape how AI is applied in real-world engineering environments at scale. You will work on high-value problems at the intersection of developer productivity, toolchain modernization, automation, CI/CD, observability, and embedded software development. Your work will help engineering teams move faster, reduce friction, improve quality, and unlock new capabilities across a critical part of GM’s software development ecosystem.

You will join a team that is actively modernizing and scaling core engineering toolchains, including CI/CD robustness, workflow automation, dashboarding and observability, configuration and calibration workflows, and platform evolution. This role offers the opportunity to turn promising AI concepts into reliable, enterprise-ready capabilities that deliver measurable value.

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 actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position, as well as geography of the selected candidate.
The salary range for this role is ($160,200 - 246,300). 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:
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.