Senior System Software Engineer - AV Platform - CA, Santa Clara, United States
$184,000 - $287,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 18 July 2026 by the employer.
Design sensor drivers, data streaming, and vehicle interface abstraction within the NVIDIA DriveWorks SDK.
About the role
The Autonomous Vehicles Platform team is looking for a Senior System Software Engineer to design, develop, and maintain core software technology around sensor drivers, interfaces, data streaming, data recording, playback, and vehicle interface abstraction. The team builds the NVIDIA DriveWorks SDK to deliver a software stack and framework for autonomous vehicles.
What you'll do
- Design and optimize software architectures and frameworks to deliver real-world performance meeting customer specifications. - Develop product code in C++ using CUDA for GPGPU algorithmic parallelism while adhering to MISRA safety and quality standards. - Collaborate with vendors on the design and integration of vehicular sensors. - Build sensor drivers, plug-ins, and core data processing components. - Create tools for sensor data recording, playback, and visualization. - Partner with control and vehicle teams to build self-driving interfaces, perform in-vehicle testing, and analyze data integrity.
What you'll need
- BS or MS degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field (or equivalent experience). - 8+ years of experience developing and debugging multithreaded/distributed applications such as multimedia systems or game engines. - Strong C and C++ programming skills and experience writing low latency, performant code. - Strong knowledge of programming and debugging techniques for parallel and distributed architectures. - Background working with Linux, Android, and/or other real-time operating systems. - Experience with sensors such as cameras, LiDAR, radar, ultrasonics, IMU, and GPS, along with vehicle control interfaces.
Skills: Autonomous Vehicles, DriveWorks SDK, sensor drivers, C++, CUDA, real-time operating systems
This role has been open 95 days — well above the 61-day median for Systems Software Engineering roles.
Systems Software Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
697
|
Median days open
61 d
|
Median salary
$210k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NVIDIA | All employers we track in this specialty (697 roles · 73 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 136 | 697 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 1004 | 6279 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 42 d | 61 d (−19 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $210k |
Skills observed across this category: Autonomous Vehicles, DriveWorks SDK, sensor drivers, C++, CUDA, real-time operating systems
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 172 open roles · median 82 d
- NVIDIA (this employer) · 133 open roles · median 42 d
- AMD · 61 open roles · median 50 d
- Mobileye · 25 open roles · median 76 d
- Broadcom · 23 open roles · median 56 d
- Arm Holdings · 20 open roles · median 118 d
How we counted: 697 open Systems Software Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 73 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.