Staff Software Engineer - Core Services
About the role
Aurora’s Services Engineering organization builds full‑stack solutions—including backend services, web and mobile apps, and real‑time onboard code—that enable commercial operation of autonomous vehicle fleets at scale. The Staff Engineer will join the Core Services team to design and build a new asset‑management solution that scales Aurora’s autonomous‑vehicle fleet.
Responsibilities
- Design complex systems from the ground up, collaborating closely with software, hardware, and infrastructure engineering teams.
- Partner with product managers, designers, and operations stakeholders to deliver self‑driving vehicle capabilities quickly, safely, and broadly.
- Design, implement, and maintain a micro‑backend architecture in Aurora’s AWS cloud to monitor and manage the entire commercial fleet.
- Design and implement the fleet‑management solution and vehicle communication system.
- Establish technology and infrastructure that scale products with high availability and reliability.
- Contribute to and evolve team culture around mentorship, feedback, collaboration, and engineering excellence.
Required Qualifications
- 7+ years of experience building backend services.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.
- Experience with web communication protocols such as REST, gRPC, and GraphQL.
- Experience building large‑scale, high‑concurrency, high‑throughput, safety‑critical backend services.
- Exceptional communication skills: ability to write technical specs, give and receive feedback, translate technical concepts for non‑technical audiences, and practice openness, empathy, kindness, and collaboration.
- Action‑oriented mindset with good judgment to balance speed and quality, and a self‑starter attitude in a fast‑growing environment.
- Proven ability to strengthen teams through proactive conflict engagement, patience, and collaborative problem‑solving.
- Motivation to own the product lifecycle end‑to‑end, working closely with product, design, and internal customers from concept through release and post‑release support.
Desirable Qualifications
- Experience with embedded autonomous‑vehicle development.
- Experience with IoT and real‑time communication between devices and the cloud.
- Familiarity with application release strategies such as feature flagging, A/B testing, and canary releases.
- Experience with observability and monitoring of safety‑critical systems.
- Background in fleet‑management solutions for robots, vehicles, or aerial drones.
- Experience delivering external customer‑facing software, including production rollouts with real customers.
- Experience with safety‑critical and mission‑critical applications.
Pay
For roles based in Mountain View, CA and San Francisco, the salary range is $189,000 – $303,000 per year. For roles based in Pittsburgh, PA, the salary range is $171,000 – $273,000 per year. Base pay within the range will be determined based on skills, experience, qualifications, education, and market conditions. The successful candidate will also be eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and benefits.
Benefits
- Annual performance bonus.
- Equity compensation.
- Comprehensive benefits package.
- Hybrid work environment with a minimum of three days per week in the office to foster collaboration and empathy.
- Culture focused on integrity, ambitious goals, and a “no jerks” policy.
- Commitment to safety with expectations for all employees to adhere to safety policies.
- Inclusive hiring practices and accommodations for candidates with disabilities.