Senior Onboard Vehicle Network Engineer

Mission Summary

Motional's Platform Infrastructure organization builds and operates the foundational onboard software systems that power our autonomous vehicles. Our responsibilities include system communications and IPC, networking, Linux operating system development and maintenance, high-speed data logging and offload, and onboard system performance optimization.

We are seeking an Onboard Vehicle Network Engineer to lead the design, evolution, and maintenance of our onboard vehicle network architecture. In this hands-on engineering role, you will be responsible for defining the network topology, hardware interfaces, communication protocols, and network diagnostics for both our current generation of operational autonomous vehicles and our next-generation vehicle platform.

You will blend software engineering expertise with system-level network design to ensure high-throughput, low-latency, deterministic, and resilient communication across all onboard compute nodes, sensors, and controllers.

What You'll Be Doing

• Design and evolve the onboard vehicle network topology, including physical and logical architectures for both current operational platforms and next-generation autonomous vehicles.
• Define and implement network protocol stacks, communication standards, and messaging layers across compute nodes, sensors, microcontrollers, and actuators.
• Write and maintain high-quality software and tooling for network routing, monitoring, fault detection, diagnostics, and failover handling.
• Partner with hardware, platform, and autonomy software teams to evaluate and select network hardware components.
• Establish network performance budgets, Quality of Service (QoS) policies, network isolation/segmentation strategies, and latency/bandwidth constraints.
• Build telemetry and monitoring tools to observe network health, bandwidth utilization, packet drops, and real-time communication performance.
• Diagnose and resolve complex, system-level networking issues, including loss of communication, packet drops, latency jitter, and hardware controller errors.
• Define maintenance, provisioning, and OTA firmware update strategies for onboard network switches and interface hardware.
• Contribute to technical roadmaps for next-generation onboard networking and communications infrastructure.

What We're Looking For

• Strong background as a Software Engineer with demonstrated ability to write, debug, and maintain production code.
• Deep understanding of embedded network architectures, network topology design, and system-level communication flows.
• Hands-on experience with networking protocols and standards (e.g., Ethernet, TCP/IP, UDP, CAN/CAN-FD, etc).
• Proficiency in a modern programming language (C++ is preferred, but experience in any modern language is acceptable).
• Experience designing network security policies, traffic shaping/prioritization, QoS, and logical network isolation.
• Ability to design and build software tools for network telemetry, packet inspection, and automated system diagnostics.
• Experience collaborating closely across organizational boundaries with hardware, embedded Linux, system integration, and application engineering teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex network architecture decisions to diverse engineering audiences.

Bonus Points

• Strong, practical coding experience in modern C++ within embedded Linux or automotive software environments.
• Experience with automotive network software architectures and protocols (e.g., AUTOSAR Classic/Adaptive, DDS, ROS/ROS2).
• Familiarity with automotive switch hardware, PHYs, and compute platforms (e.g., Broadcom, Marvell, NVIDIA DRIVE AGX platform).
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing, network simulation, or bus heavy-load stress testing.
• Knowledge of Linux networking internals, socket programming, network device drivers, or eBPF-based network monitoring.
• Experience with automotive cybersecurity concepts (e.g., ISO/SAE 21434, SecOC, MACsec, onboard firewalls).
• Familiarity with Bazel build systems and large-scale software codebases.

Work Arrangement

• This role is hybrid from our Pittsburgh/Boston/LV office and requires in-office days each week to support hands-on system work and cross-functional collaboration.
• #LI-AE1

Pay and benefits

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.

Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional's benefits program. Motional's benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.

Salary Range $149,000 - $198,500 USD

Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We're driven by something more.

Our journey is always people first.

We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.

Higher purpose, greater impact.

We're creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it's not only good for our business, it's the right thing to do.

Scale up, not starting up.

Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We're driven to scale; we're moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.

Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia.