Senior Software Engineer, AV Frameworks

GM • Sunnyvale, CA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Software Engineer will work on AV Frameworks within AV Platform Core at General Motors, building foundational frameworks that power robotics and autonomous capabilities across distributed compute. The role focuses on inter-process communication (IPC), middleware, and developer experience for reliable, observable, high-performance systems. The engineer will design and deliver core communication and runtime building blocks used by AV and robotics applications on vehicles, benches, and in simulation, working across C++, Linux, and networking/IPC to achieve low-latency messaging, deterministic scheduling, and production-grade reliability at scale.

The position is categorized as hybrid. The selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least three times a week or at another frequency set by their manager. Relocation benefits are available for candidates who qualify under company policy. The role is subject to export-control restrictions and requires the successful candidate to be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen, U.S. permanent resident, asylee, or refugee).

Requirements

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years building systems-level software in modern C++ (C++17/20/23) or Rust on Linux.
• Deep knowledge of concurrency, memory management, lock-free or low-contention patterns, and performance profiling.
• Hands-on experience with IPC/messaging systems and distributed systems fundamentals, including serialization, backpressure, flow control, and QoS.
• Strong understanding of networking, including sockets, TCP/UDP, multicast, NICs, buffers, MTU, and packetization, as well as time synchronization concepts.
• Proficiency with build and CI tooling such as Bazel, Buck, or CMake; test frameworks; and artifact/versioning strategies.
• Must be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen, U.S. permanent resident, asylee, or refugee) due to export-control restrictions.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with robotics/AV middleware such as ROS 2, DDS, gRPC, ZeroMQ, eCAL, or shared-memory IPC.
• Experience with serialization and data tools such as Protobuf, FlatBuffers, Cap’n Proto, zero-copy techniques, or record/resimulation pipelines.
• Experience with advanced networking/IO, including io_uring, RDMA/PCIe messaging, kernel/bpf-based observability, or packet capture and analysis.
• Knowledge of real-time Linux and systems constraints, including scheduling, CPU isolation, priority inversion mitigation, and bounded latency.
• Experience with tracing and performance tools such as perf, LTTng, eBPF, or flamegraphs, and defining and enforcing performance SLOs.
• Safety and reliability awareness, including diagnostics, failover, degraded modes, and basic ISO 26262 considerations for software components.
• Python or Go for tooling and integration.

Responsibilities

• Own the design and implementation of high-performance IPC and middleware primitives, including publish/subscribe, shared memory, serialization, discovery, and QoS.
• Improve latency, throughput, and determinism through profiling, tracing, benchmarking, and targeted optimization.
• Build developer-facing APIs, tooling, and documentation that improve ergonomics, correctness, and velocity for internal customers.
• Deliver platform-ready components with observability through metrics, logs, and traces, as well as robust fault handling and reproducible performance characteristics.
• Collaborate with platform OS, drivers, safety, controls, perception, and tooling teams to integrate end-to-end solutions.
• Apply production rigor through code reviews, unit, integration, and soak testing strategies, performance and regression gates, and rollout/rollback discipline.
• Mentor engineers, contribute to design reviews, and promote engineering excellence.

Benefits

• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Health Savings Account
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Retirement savings plan
• Sickness and accident benefits
• Life insurance
• Paid vacation
• Paid holidays
• Incentive pay program with payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance
• Relocation benefits for candidates who qualify under company policy

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior