Senior Onboard Vehicle Network Engineer

Motional•Boston, MA

16h•$149,000 - $198,500•Hybrid

About The Position

Motional’s Platform Infrastructure organization builds and operates the foundational onboard software systems that power its autonomous vehicles, including system communications and IPC, networking, Linux operating system development and maintenance, high-speed data logging and offload, and onboard system performance optimization. The Senior Onboard Vehicle Network Engineer will lead the design, evolution, and maintenance of onboard vehicle network architecture for current operational autonomous vehicles and next-generation platforms. This hands-on role combines software engineering with system-level network design to provide high-throughput, low-latency, deterministic, and resilient communications across onboard compute nodes, sensors, and controllers. The role is hybrid from Motional’s Pittsburgh, Boston, or Las Vegas office and requires in-office days each week for hands-on system work and cross-functional collaboration. The estimated base salary range is $149,000–$198,500 USD. The role may include additional compensation such as a bonus or company equity. Eligible candidates may participate in Motional’s benefits program, which includes medical, dental, vision, a 401(k) with company match, health savings accounts, life insurance, and pet insurance.

Requirements

Strong software engineering background with demonstrated ability to write, debug, and maintain production code.
Deep understanding of embedded network architectures, network topology design, and system-level communication flows.
Hands-on experience with networking protocols and standards such as Ethernet, TCP/IP, UDP, and CAN/CAN-FD.
Proficiency in a modern programming language; C++ is preferred, but experience in any modern language is acceptable.
Experience designing network security policies, traffic shaping and prioritization, QoS, and logical network isolation.
Ability to design and build software tools for network telemetry, packet inspection, and automated system diagnostics.
Experience collaborating across organizational boundaries with hardware, embedded Linux, system integration, and application engineering teams.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex network architecture decisions to diverse engineering audiences.

Nice To Haves

Practical coding experience in modern C++ within embedded Linux or automotive software environments.
Experience with automotive network software architectures and protocols such as AUTOSAR Classic/Adaptive, DDS, or ROS/ROS2.
Familiarity with automotive switch hardware, PHYs, and compute platforms such as Broadcom, Marvell, or NVIDIA DRIVE AGX.
Experience with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing, network simulation, or bus-heavy-load stress testing.
Knowledge of Linux networking internals, socket programming, network device drivers, or eBPF-based network monitoring.
Experience with automotive cybersecurity concepts such as ISO/SAE 21434, SecOC, MACsec, or onboard firewalls.
Familiarity with Bazel build systems and large-scale software codebases.

Responsibilities

Design and evolve physical and logical onboard vehicle network architectures for current and next-generation autonomous vehicle platforms.
Define and implement network protocol stacks, communication standards, and messaging layers across compute nodes, sensors, microcontrollers, and actuators.
Write and maintain software and tools for network routing, monitoring, fault detection, diagnostics, and failover handling.
Work with hardware, platform, and autonomy software teams to evaluate and select network hardware components.
Establish network performance budgets, Quality of Service (QoS) policies, network isolation and segmentation strategies, and latency and bandwidth constraints.
Build telemetry and monitoring tools to observe network health, bandwidth utilization, packet drops, and real-time communication performance.
Diagnose and resolve system-level networking problems, including communication loss, packet drops, latency jitter, and hardware controller errors.
Define maintenance, provisioning, and over-the-air firmware update strategies for onboard network switches and interface hardware.
Contribute to technical roadmaps for next-generation onboard networking and communications infrastructure.