Senior Software Engineer - Protocol Operations & Trust

We are looking for a hands-on Software Engineer to turn complex simulation-testing challenges into production-ready software. Working closely with operations and engineering teams, you will build across backend services, data pipelines, production infrastructure, and evaluation feedback loops to move our testing from manual to automated. That means automating the workflows people run by hand today, replacing hand-collected metrics with a pipeline that collects, analyzes, and acts on them, and connecting each team’s standalone tools into a single streaming system that makes test creation and maintenance scale. The result is faster test creation and higher-quality test protocols that every downstream team can build with confidence.

What You’ll Do:

• Own the delivery of the simulation test suites that validate autonomous vehicle software, building on partner teams’ test creation tools to produce and maintain tests in bulk, and building the orchestration and pipelines that connect those systems into an end-to-end workflow from incoming requests to running tests.

• Automate and standardize test creation and maintenance, so coverage grows without growing manual effort and integrate partner teams’ evaluation systems as inputs that drive how tests are built, triaged, and retired.

• Partner with Autonomy, Systems, Safety, and customer teams to turn their testing needs into the tooling, interfaces, and automation that can deliver them seamlessly.

• Uphold high standards for code quality and software architecture through code reviews and technical leadership, mentoring other engineers on software engineering and simulation testing best practices.

• Leverage AI-assisted development tools and analytics platforms to enhance productivity, improve code quality, and drive innovation in simulation testing.

• Take ownership of ambiguous problem spaces, define practical paths forward, and move quickly from prototype to production

• Operate with urgency and a strong bias toward execution velocity while maintaining a high bar for engineering quality, * This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Sunnyvale OR Bellevue three times per week, at minimum.

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 5+ years of experience designing, building, and operating production software, backend services, data platforms, or infrastructure systems.

• Strong Python development skills, including production-quality coding, unit testing, code review, debugging, and reliability practices.

• Experience building scalable backend systems, APIs, microservices, workflow orchestration, or internal engineering platforms.

• Experience with cloud-based production systems, including deployment, observability, performance, and operational reliability.

• Experience designing or operating data pipelines and data-processing systems using SQL, NoSQL and other tools for large-scale operational, telemetry, or time-series data.

• Experience building automated tests, validation, quality checks, CI/CD, or release workflows.

• Ability to lead high-level technical design doc and drive execution across multiple teams.

• Strong communication skills and the ability to turn ambiguous technical problems into practical, maintainable solutions.

• Demonstrated adaptability, ownership, and ability to operate effectively in evolving technical environments.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge:

• Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, simulation, evaluation systems, or other complex software platforms.

• Experience building automated test-generation, test-execution, or workflow-orchestration systems.

• Experience with defining human-in-the-loop/automation quality processes or release-management systems where reproducibility and traceability are critical.

• Experience developing data-processing, query, analysis, anomaly detection, or issue-triage systems that help identify and prioritize system problems.

• Experience with observability, time-series analysis, performance monitoring, dashboards, or operational analytics.

• Experience working on safety-critical, mission-critical, or highly reliable products.

• Familiarity with simulation validation, test-quality metrics, human-in-the-loop evaluation, or feedback-driven quality improvement.

• Experience with cloud-native deployment, infrastructure, code, containerization, or distributed systems.

• Demonstrated ability to adapt quickly in evolving technical environments and take ownership of ambiguous problem spaces.

• The salary range for this role is $153,200 and $234,100. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.

General Motors is a global leader in advanced driver assistance. With Super Cruise hands-free technology in more than 750,000 Super Cruise-equipped vehicles on the road and over 1 billion hands-free miles driven, GM is demonstrating how automation can be trusted, intuitive, and helpful. GM has the global reach to bring cutting-edge advances to everyday drivers at an unprecedented scale. Join us to help deliver the next generation of safe and delightful autonomous vehicle experiences.

The Team:

Protocol Operations & Trust (POT) is part of Scaled Engineering Operations (SEO) within GM’s AV Simulation organization. We build and operate workflows, automation, tooling, and data products that make simulation testing scalable, reliable, and trusted.

We own the simulation-protocol lifecycle: from definition and tier correlation through test creation, quality validation, monitoring, maintenance, and release safeguards. By working across simulation, evaluation, validation, autonomy development, data, and infrastructure teams, we turn complex testing workflows into clear, reproducible, decision-ready products that help engineering teams develop and validate autonomous vehicles with greater speed and confidence., We believe we all must make a choice every day - individually and collectively - to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team., General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.