Software Engineer, Networking & Linux Systems

About the Role

We are looking for a Senior Systems & Networking Engineer to own, scale, and harden the communication fabric of our autonomous vehicles. You will focus deeply on both our complex, multi-gigabit internal network (connecting safety-critical sensors and high-compute nodes using the latest Automotive Ethernet and TSN standards) and external connectivity (high-throughput 5G telemetry), debugging complex issues across the Linux stack and target hardware.

This is a high-impact, hands-on role with broad technical ownership. You will collaborate closely with core platform and hardware engineers to evolve our networking architecture. Your work spans the entire systems stack - from low-level optimizations like NIC ring buffer tuning and microsecond PTP/gPTP synchronization, to architecting high-performance Go daemons for multi-carrier cellular bonding and failover.

What you'll do

Internal Networking & Time Synchronization

• Safety-Critical Infrastructure: Architect, configure, and optimize the internal fault-tolerant network linking on-board compute nodes, controllers, and high-bandwidth sensors (LiDARs, cameras).
• Clock Synchronization: Drive the design and reliability of vehicle-wide time synchronization utilizing PTP / IEEE 802.1AS (gPTP) for safety-critical data paths.
• Switch & Hardware Management: Configure and troubleshoot managed automotive/industrial switches (e.g., Marvell, Broadcom), VLAN segmentation, and Automotive Ethernet to ensure deterministic traffic isolation.

External Connectivity & Platform Systems

• Engineered Connectivity: Design robust failover mechanisms and network bonding frameworks (aggregating multiple LTE/5G carriers) to ensure zero-drop external links.
• Linux Performance Tuning: Debug and tune low-level networking parameters (NIC buffers, hardware offloads, interrupt handling, and NAPI behavior) for high-throughput, low-latency performance.
• Systems Software Development: Write and maintain reliable system-level software, telemetry agents, and daemons in Go and Python for x86_64 and ARM64 (NVIDIA) platforms.
• Hardware-Software Integration: Assist the embedded Linux team with hardware bring-up, debugging physical interfaces (PCIe, Ethernet), and integrating networking components into our custom OS deployment.
• Observability: Build end-to-end monitoring for the networking stack, exporting granular performance metrics so the fleet's connectivity health is debuggable at scale.

What you'll need

• Systems Programming Depth: Strong track record in system-level software development with deep expertise in Linux systems and networking fundamentals (roughly mid to senior level - we care about depth, not a year count).
• Advanced Networking Expertise: Hands-on experience with IP routing, VLANs, firewalling (nftables/iptables), and expert-level packet troubleshooting (tcpdump, Wireshark, etc.).
• Language Proficiency: Solid experience programming in Go and Python, with a willingness to work interchangeably between them. Comfort reading and understanding C/C++ for lower-level driver and kernel debugging.
• Hardware-Boundary Debugging: A methodical approach to debugging complex problems that span across user-space code, Linux kernels, drivers, and physical hardware interfaces.
• Location: Austin, TX (On-site / Hybrid. This role requires close collaboration with real hardware and lab tools in our Austin facility).

Nice to have

• Automotive / Edge Networking: Prior experience with Automotive Ethernet (100/1000BASE-T1) and TSN (Time-Sensitive Networking).
• Time-Sync Expertise: Hands-on exposure to implementing or debugging PTP, ptp4l, and hardware timestamping in distributed systems.
• Embedded / Hardware Tools: Comfort using lab tools (serial consoles, JTAG, I2C/SPI) to isolate hardware faults vs. software bugs on ARM64 platforms.
• Real-Time Linux: Experience with real-time OS tuning, cgroups, CPU pinning, and scheduling priorities.
• Nix / NixOS Experience: Familiarity with the Nix ecosystem (our deployment platform is built on NixOS).

• #LI-MS1
• Candidates are required to be authorized to work in the U.S. The employer is not offering relocation, sponsorship, and remote work options are not available.