Senior Software Engineer - Manage Vehicle Interfaces

Latitude AI•Detroit, MI

About The Position

Latitude AI (lat.ai) develops automated driving technologies, including L3, for Ford vehicles at scale. We’re driven by the opportunity to reimagine what it’s like to drive and make travel safer, less stressful, and more enjoyable for everyone. When you join the Latitude team, you’ll work alongside leading experts across machine learning and robotics, cloud platforms, mapping, sensors and compute systems, test operations, systems and safety engineering – all dedicated to making a real, positive impact on the driving experience for millions of people. As a Ford Motor Company subsidiary, we operate independently to develop automated driving technology at the speed of a technology startup. Latitude is headquartered in Pittsburgh with engineering centers in Dearborn, Mich., and Palo Alto, Calif. Meet the team: The Manage Vehicle Interfaces team focuses on vehicle communication by building and maintaining the in-vehicle interface layer for our zonal architecture. We define and evolve message schemas (IDL), generate and integrate serialization/decoding code, and implement the C/C++ runtime components that transmit/receive vehicle messages, enforce safety/security checks, and publish faults/telemetry. We also support the supporting ecosystem—bench simulation, logging/converters, and CI—so interface changes can ship reliably.

Requirements

Strong modern C++ knowledge
Strong unit testing experience with a modern C++ unit testing framework, preferably GTest/GMock
Comfort in a large monorepo: Bazel targets, BUILD hygiene, etc
Strong integration discipline, able to modify multiple repos/areas in one set of changes without breaking integrations
Familiar with serialization boundaries (Serialization front-end vs. back-end/generated, decode/encode)
Linux application development fluency
Basic networking understanding (UDP batching, parsing messages)

Nice To Haves

FreeRTOS/SafeRTOS experience
LwIP integration experience
Python experience

Responsibilities

End-to-end integration of vehicle interface definitions through schema/code generation into our onboard C++ publishers/subscribers
Produce high-quality, maintainable code for plumbing messages: encode/decode mappings, message validation (length, IDs), rate enforcement, and robust error handling/telemetry
Debug cross-boundary issues efficiently (network capture → deserialization → internal channels → consumers), and reduce integration friction by improving tooling, documentation, and developer workflows around interface changes
Contribute to verification readiness by adding targeted unit tests and bench-level tests for new/changed messages (examples: decoder correctness, malformed payloads, E2E/SecOC-related drop behavior as applicable)

Benefits

Competitive compensation packages
High-quality individual and family medical, dental, and vision insurance
Health savings account with available employer match
Employer-matched 401(k) retirement plan with immediate vesting
Employer-paid group term life insurance and the option to elect voluntary life insurance
Paid parental leave
Paid medical leave
Unlimited vacation
15 paid holidays
Daily lunches, snacks, and beverages available in all office locations
Pre-tax spending accounts for healthcare and dependent care expenses
Pre-tax commuter benefits
Monthly wellness stipend
Adoption/Surrogacy support program
Backup child and elder care program
Professional development reimbursement
Employee assistance program
Discounted programs that include legal services, identity theft protection, pet insurance, and more
Company and team bonding outlets: employee resource groups, quarterly team activity stipend, and wellness initiatives