Principal Software Engineer - Virtualization

This role is based remotely, but if the candidate lives within a 50 miles radius of a GM hub, they will be expected to report to the location three times a week (or other frequency dictated by your manager)., General Motors is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to shape and scale the engineering platforms that build, test, integrate, validate, and deliver embedded software for software-defined vehicles. This role is for a hands-on technical leader who can turn ambiguous, cross-team problems into durable architecture, practical standards, and measurable improvements in engineering effectiveness, release confidence, and product quality.

The successful candidate will lead a major capability across multiple teams, influence technical direction beyond their immediate organization, and connect software, tooling, infrastructure, test, and release activities into a coherent engineering system.

What You’ll Do:

• Be a critical leader of software engineering productivity and effectiveness.
• Identify opportunities, strategies, process improvements, and lead the change.
• Be hands-on by leading high impact efforts.
• Be a strong communicator, coach, and mentor.
• Analyze unusual and difficult problems effectively.
• Ability to connect multiple initiatives together to deliver higher value.
• Visualize required innovation, learning and simplification in this space and transition the team to execute what is required to achieve.
• Maintain command skills and empathy at the same time
• Architect enterprise-scale CI/CD systems for embedded, simulation, and cloud workloads.
• Define branching, release, and quality-gate standards across multiple engineering domains.
• Design GitOps-based delivery for multi-cluster Kubernetes environments.
• Lead progressive delivery strategy including automated rollback and analysis.
• Establish IaC architecture using Terraform modules and multi-environment patterns.
• Integrate security and compliance into pipelines and artifact flows.
• Define observability standards for pipelines, simulation workloads, and runtime systems.
• Mentor DevOps and simulation developers across the organization.

• Bachelor’s degree in software engineering or equivalent experience.
• 12+ years of experience in software development .
• Deep understanding of software architecture for real time systems.
• Experience shipping high quality safety critical products.
• Exceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities, with a keen attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated ability to work in an action-oriented decision-making environment.
• Deep Kubernetes knowledge including cluster operations.
• Strong Terraform/IaC experience with production-grade module design.
• Experience with embedded or simulation workflows (vECUs, SIL, FMU, SSP).
• Cloud architecture experience across AWS, Azure, or GCP.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications):

• Master’s degree in software engineering or equivalent experience
• 15+ years of experience in software development .

• Experience in automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, or another embedded, real-time, regulated, or safety-critical environment.

• Knowledge of functional safety, ISO 26262, cybersecurity engineering, ASPICE, MISRA, AUTOSAR, or related engineering practices.

• Experience with vehicle-level integration and validation, including SIL, CoSIM, vECU, HIL, benches, physical systems, or other virtual and hardware-based environments.

• A record of creating enterprise standards, platform strategies, technical communities, developer self-service, reliability objectives, or measurable productivity improvements.

• Advanced degree in a related technical field.

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 actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position, as well as geography of the selected candidate.

The Salary Range:

Salary range for this role is 171,150 and 288,500. 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., 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.

Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, though which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.