Staff Software Engineer - Frameworks

Aurora•Seattle, WA

3d•$171,000 - $303,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Aurora is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join its Autonomy Frameworks team, which builds the robotics middleware powering the Aurora Driver. The team develops the runtime framework used by Autonomy and Simulation applications to communicate, execute, and interact with the vehicle platform, both on the road and offline in the cloud. In this role, you will define and evolve the architecture of Aurora’s AV runtime framework across on-vehicle and offline execution. You will design high-performance, low-latency communication between modules; own configuration, deployment, and process lifecycle management on vehicle compute; and improve the determinism, fidelity, and performance of offline execution. You will also develop framework capabilities that support fault traceability, health monitoring, recovery, and Aurora’s safety case. The role includes designing intuitive C++ APIs, supporting field testing and fleet operations, mentoring senior engineers, setting coding standards, and driving the framework’s long-term roadmap. Aurora expects employees to work from the office at least three days per week. Some roles may require more frequent in-office presence, up to five days per week, based on operational needs. The successful candidate is eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and benefits.

Requirements

BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent industry experience.
Expert-level C++ programming skills and ability to design high-performance, thread-safe, and memory-efficient systems in a Linux environment.
Proven experience building middleware, runtime frameworks, or distributed systems, such as pub/sub messaging, IPC, schedulers, or executors.
Deep understanding of concurrency, memory models, and Linux systems internals, including processes, threads, scheduling, and shared memory.
Ability to work across multiple programming languages and paradigms.
Passion for writing robust, intuitive, and pragmatic production code.
Ability to navigate and work effectively in large codebases.
Strong verbal and written communication skills.
Ability to work autonomously and collaborate effectively with colleagues across time zones.

Nice To Haves

Experience with robotics middleware such as ROS 2, ThreadX, or FreeRTOS, or with soft real-time systems.
Experience with deterministic simulation, log replay, or reproducible execution.
Experience with performance evaluation and optimization.
Experience with safety-critical systems.

Responsibilities

Define and evolve the architecture of Aurora’s AV runtime framework across on-vehicle and offline execution.
Design and implement high-performance, low-latency inter-module communication, including shared-memory, zero-copy IPC, and RPC.
Own stack configuration, deployment, and process lifecycle management on the vehicle compute platform.
Improve the determinism, fidelity, and performance of offline execution so on-vehicle behavior can be faithfully reproduced at scale.
Build framework capabilities for fault traceability, health monitoring, and recovery that support Aurora’s safety case.
Design intuitive C++ APIs that make the right patterns easy for Autonomy engineers.
Provide engineering support for field testing and fleet operations.
Mentor senior engineers, set coding standards, and drive the long-term roadmap for the AV framework.