Principal Software Engineer- Test System Modernization

About the role

The Role
General Motors is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to shape and scale the engineering platforms that build, test, integrate, validate, and deliver embedded software for software-defined vehicles. This role is for a hands-on technical leader who can turn ambiguous, cross-team problems into durable architecture, practical standards, and measurable improvements in engineering effectiveness, release confidence, and product quality.

Responsibilities

• Be a critical leader of software engineering productivity and effectiveness.
• Identify opportunities, strategies, process improvements, and lead the change.
• Hands-on by leading high impact efforts.
• A strong communicator, coach, and mentor.
• Analyze unusual and difficult problems effectively.
• Ability to connect multiple initiatives together to deliver higher value.
• Visualize required innovation, learning and simplification in this space and transition the team to execute what is required to achieve.
• Maintain command skills and empathy at the same time.
• Lead the modernization of a large-scale embedded software test system.
• Define and modernize a standardized, fully automated, headless framework across virtual and physical environments to enable full-suite testing multiple times per day.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, systems engineering or a related technical field; or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically, 15 or more years experience validating software systems, including substantial experience leading architecture across organizations.
• Deep understanding of software architecture for real time systems.
• Experience shipping high quality safety critical products.
• Experience architecting large-scale CI/CD, embedded test automation, and build-to-test pipelines.
• Expertise in variation management, configuration comparison, change-impact analysis, and risk-based regression testing.
• Experience with test-result data modeling, Databricks, analytics, data mining, and API development.
• Proficiency with embedded systems, Linux, Git, Python, Bash, Robot Framework, containers, and infrastructure as code.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate automated diagnostics and issue-management workflows.

Skills

• Exceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities, with a keen attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated ability to work in an action-oriented decision-making environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, AI, or a related field.
• Experience in embedded software development, automotive software, systems engineering, or safety-related toolchains.
• Familiarity with GM engineering tools, engineering workflows, or internal platform environments.
• Experience building AI assistants, coding agents, or domain-specific AI capabilities for engineers.
• Experience with knowledge systems, vector search, ranking, workflow orchestration, or code intelligence platforms.
• Experience supporting large engineering communities through reusable tools, templates, and automation.
• Experience evaluating AI quality in production systems using measurable outcomes such as acceptance rate, time saved, precision and recall, hallucination reduction, or workflow completion rate.

Benefits

Compensation
The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position, as well as geography of the selected candidate. The salary range for this role is $238,700 and $365,700. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.

Company Vehicle

Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.

Relocation

Relocation benefits are available for candidates who qualify under company policy.