Staff Software Engineer, AV Frameworks

The Role 
We’re AV Frameworks within AV Platform Core at General Motors. We build the foundational frameworks that power robotics and autonomous capabilities across distributed compute — with a focus on inter-process communication (IPC), middleware, and developer experience that make complex systems reliable, observable, and fast. 

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will design and deliver the core communication and runtime building blocks used by AV/Robotics applications on vehicles, on benches, and in simulation. You’ll work across C++ systems, Linux, and networking/IPC to achieve low-latency messaging, deterministic scheduling, and production-grade reliability at scale. 

What you’ll do 

• Own design and implementation of high-performance IPC and middleware primitives (publish/subscribe, shared memory, serialization, discovery, QoS). 

• Drive latency, throughput, and determinism improvements through profiling, tracing, benchmarking, and targeted optimizations. 

• Build developer-facing APIs, tooling, and documentation that improve ergonomics, correctness, and velocity for internal customers. 

• Deliver platform-ready components with observability (metrics, logs, traces), robust fault handling, and reproducible performance characteristics. 

• Collaborate cross-functionally with platform OS, drivers, safety, controls, perception, and tooling teams to integrate end-to-end solutions. 

• Apply production rigor: code reviews, testing strategies (unit, integration, soak), performance and regression gates, and rollout/rollback discipline. 

• Mentor engineers, contribute to design reviews, and raise the bar on engineering excellence. 

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications) 

• 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 (serialization, backpressure, flow control, QoS). 

• Strong understanding of networking (sockets, TCP/UDP, multicast, NICs, buffers, MTU, packetization) and time synchronization concepts. 

• Proficiency with build and CI tooling (Bazel/Buck/CMake, test frameworks, artifact/versioning strategies). 

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications) 

•  Robotics/AV middleware: ROS 2, DDS, gRPC, ZeroMQ, eCAL, shared memory IPC. 

• Serialization and data: Protobuf, FlatBuffers, Cap’n Proto, zero-copy techniques, record/resimulation pipelines. 

• Advanced networking/IO: io_uring, RDMA/PCIe messaging, kernel/bpf-based observability, packet capture and analysis. 

• Real-time Linux and systems constraints (scheduling, CPU isolation, priority inversion mitigation, bounded latency). 

• Tracing and performance tooling: perf, LTTng, eBPF, flamegraphs; defining and enforcing performance SLOs. 

• Safety and reliability awareness (diagnostics, failover, degraded modes, basics of ISO 26262 considerations for software components). 

• Secondary languages and tooling: Python/Go for tooling/integration 

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 compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of New York, Colorado, California, or Washington.  

• The salary range for this role is $154,420 to $235,900. 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: 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. 

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. 

Relocation:  This job may be eligible for relocation benefits. 

 

Hybrid: This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to the Warren Technical Center in Warren, MI or Mountain View three times per week, at minimum.