Principal Software Engineer (Automotive)

Location: Sunnyvale, California, USA; hybrid working model with in-person collaboration in offices and focused remote work.

Salary: $276K–$350K annually plus equity.

Company

hirify.global develops an AI platform for autonomous driving that enables vehicles to learn from real-world experience and operate across different OEMs, vehicles, and hardware platforms.

What you will do

• Define and refine the 12–24 month technical roadmap for the Robot Software organization.
• Lead high-impact platform initiatives from ambiguous requirements through delivery.
• Align architecture and interfaces across Robot Software, Autonomy, Simulation, Evaluation, hardware, and OEM stakeholders.
• Design observable, diagnosable, and supportable systems for vehicles operating at fleet scale.
• Improve developer experience, pre-merge validation, logging, metrics, deployment, and fault isolation.
• Mentor senior engineers and guide evidence-based technical decisions.

Requirements

• Experience leading large technical initiatives involving multiple engineering teams or senior collaborators.
• Ability to define architecture and strategy while debugging difficult cross-domain problems close to the code.
• High proficiency in modern C++.
• Experience with embedded, robotics, automotive, or similarly complex systems.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to drive contentious technical decisions toward evidence-based conclusions.
• Ability to balance deep technical work with critical, unplanned technical leadership needs.

Nice to have

• Experience with Linux or QNX, robotics middleware, platform integration, simulation, embedded compute, CI/CD, or large-scale fleet operations.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work with core hours and hands-on access to vehicle workshops and labs.
• Meaningful equity and annually benchmarked salaries.
• Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable.
• Learning and development budgets for training, conferences, and growth.
• Health, dental, retirement or pension benefits, enhanced parental leave, therapy access, wellbeing partnerships, and team socials.

Hiring process

• 25-minute recruiter screen.
• Competency interviews covering software design and hiring-manager discussions.
• Technical interviews covering programming, domain knowledge, cross-functional partnerships, and technical leadership, followed by a final mission and values interview.