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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal Software Engineer, Onboard Infrastructure - **Company:** Nuro Inc. - **Location:** United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $258,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Computing Platforms, Automation of Tests, Communications Protocols, Nvidia CUDA, Computer Engineering, Software Debugging, Linux, Device Drivers, Distributed Systems, Memory Management, Ethernet, Machine Learning, PCI Express, Performance Tuning, Software Engineering, Systems Integration, Technical Data Management Systems, Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter, USB, Data Logging, Multithreading, Serial Peripheral Interface, Concurrency, Gpu Programming, Information Technology, Low Latency, C++14, Software Performance - **Published:** September 4, 2026 - **Apply:** https://startup.jobs/principal-software-engineer-onboard-infrastructure-nuro-8006186 ## About the Role * Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Robotics, or related field. * 8+ years of software engineering experience building production-quality systems software. * 5+ years of technical leadership experience, including leading complex projects, setting technical direction, and driving cross-team alignment. * Strong proficiency in modern C++, with deep experience in concurrency, multi-threading, debugging, memory management, and performance optimization. * Experience building reliable, high-performance software for robotics, embedded systems, autonomous systems, distributed systems, or other performance-critical platforms. * Strong systems-level expertise, with the ability to reason across operating systems, device interfaces, runtime frameworks, and application-level workloads. * Proven ability to diagnose complex performance, reliability, concurrency, and hardware/software integration issues. * Ability to translate ambiguous requirements into scalable architecture and mentor engineers through design and execution. Bonus Points * Master's degree or PhD in CS, EE, Computer Engineering, Robotics, or a related field. * Experience with robotics hardware, sensors, embedded compute platforms, or autonomous vehicle systems. * Deep knowledge of Linux, device drivers, computer architecture, kernel behavior, and communication protocols such as Ethernet, PCIe, USB, SPI, I2C, or UART. * Experience with high-performance communication, IPC, networking stacks, logging, monitoring, diagnostics, or data collection systems. * Experience with GPU programming, NVIDIA platforms, CUDA, image processing, machine learning infrastructure, or accelerated compute. * Experience working with hardware suppliers or integrating next-generation sensor and compute platforms. ## Description As a Principal Software Engineer, you will help define and build the high-performance, highly reliable foundation of the Nuro Driver. This role spans Device Platform, Performance, and Onboard Systems, requiring deep technical leadership across sensor and compute integration, onboard runtime systems, distributed execution, and autonomy software performance. You will architect hardware-agnostic device interfaces, inter-device communication pipelines, runtime APIs, and onboard software platforms that enable Nuro's autonomy stack to run safely and efficiently across current and future vehicle platforms. You will also lead system-wide performance and reliability efforts, including latency reduction, resource efficiency, observability, automated validation, and tooling for debugging complex onboard systems. This is a highly cross-functional and high-impact role. You will partner with autonomy, hardware, safety, validation, operations, and supplier-facing teams to integrate next-generation sensors and compute platforms, resolve reliability and performance issues, and shape the long-term technical direction of Nuro's onboard infrastructure. We are looking for a technical leader who can operate across team boundaries, align multiple stakeholders, mentor engineers, and deliver robust systems for safety-critical autonomous vehicles. About the Work * Define and drive technical direction for Nuro's onboard infrastructure across Device Platform, Performance, and Onboard Systems. * Architect core onboard systems for embedded compute, sensor integration, runtime frameworks, inter-device communication, and distributed execution across current and future vehicle platforms. * Lead system-level performance and reliability efforts, including latency reduction, resource efficiency, memory management, thread/process lifecycle management, observability, automated testing, and continuous validation. * Build foundational libraries, APIs, tools, and frameworks that enable autonomy and infrastructure teams to develop reliable, low-latency, high-performance software. * Develop onboard distributed systems, including high-performance communication between compute nodes, module orchestration, monitoring, logging, diagnostics, and large-scale autonomy/sensor data pipelines. * Diagnose complex, hard-to-reproduce failures across software, hardware, sensors, compute, networking, and autonomy workloads; drive root cause, mitigation, and long-term prevention. * Partner with autonomy, hardware, safety, validation, operations, and suppliers to define requirements, evaluate and integrate next-generation platforms, and ensure safe, reliable deployment. * Translate ambiguous product, safety, and autonomy needs into scalable technical architecture; align teams on design direction, execution plans, interfaces, and long-term platform strategy. * Mentor engineers, establish engineering best practices, and raise the technical bar across Onboard Infrastructure and partner teams. ## Related Videos - [Coffee with Developers - Stephen Jones - NVIDIA](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1303-coffee-with-developers-stephen-jones-nvidia) - [Prototyping with Hardware and the Web](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/651-prototyping-with-hardware-and-the-web) - [Docker network without Docker](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1418-docker-network-without-docker) - [Accelerating Python on GPUs](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/859-accelerating-python-on-gpus) - [Project Fugu: Extending the web](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/832-project-fugu-extending-the-web) - [Docker exec without Docker](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1094-docker-exec-without-docker) ## Related Articles - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [How software is steering vehicle technology](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/515-how-software-is-steering-vehicle-technology) - [How to Answer the Interview Question: “Why Do You Want to Be a Software Engineer?”](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/392-how-to-answer-the-interview-question-why-do-you-want-to-be-a-software-engineer) - [How We Built a Worry-Free System That Runs for 10+ Years – And What We’d Do Again](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/751-how-we-built-a-worry-free-system-that-runs-for-10-years-and-what-we-d-do-again) - [Is Software Engineering Hard?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/448-is-software-engineering-hard) - [Best Countries for Software Engineers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/267-best-countries-for-software-engineers)