Senior Software Engineer - Embedded, Av Labs

Uber Uber · Consumer · Sunnyvale, CA · Engineering

This role focuses on developing firmware and drivers for automotive-grade components and sensors (LiDAR, radar, cameras) for Uber's autonomous vehicle fleet. It involves hardware bring-up, validation, low-level software deployment for custom computing platforms, and debugging complex systems. The role requires strong embedded software experience, low-level driver expertise, and experience with automotive hardware and production lifecycles.

What you'd actually do

  1. Design, write, and maintain robust firmware and low-level device drivers for 3rd-party automotive-grade components and critical AV sensors (LiDAR, radar, cameras) to enable immediate, high-fidelity data collection and shadow mode operations.
  2. Execute the transition to production by taking ownership of board bring-up, hardware validation, and low-level software deployment for our custom, in-house designed autonomous computing platforms.
  3. Partner closely with electrical and hardware engineering teams to implement hardware-software interfaces, participate in schematic reviews, and ensure component selection aligns with firmware requirements.
  4. Utilize hardware debugging tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers) and software profiling to troubleshoot intricate system-level issues, optimize sensor data pipelines, and ensure strict timing and network synchronization across the vehicle.
  5. Act as a technical resource and mentor within the hardware team, actively contributing to best practices for embedded software architecture, code quality, and scalable deployment.

Skills

Required

  • Embedded software development
  • C/C++
  • RTOS (FreeRTOS, Embedded Linux)
  • Bare-metal development
  • Firmware development
  • Device driver development
  • Automotive-grade components
  • SoCs
  • Autonomous vehicle sensors (LiDAR, radar, cameras)
  • Sensor integration
  • Board bring-up
  • Hardware debugging tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers)
  • Automotive interfaces
  • Vehicle networks (CAN/CAN-FD, Automotive Ethernet, FPD-Link/GMSL, PCIe, SPI, I2C)
  • Production lifecycle execution
  • Prototyping
  • 3rd-party integration
  • Autonomous vehicle domain
  • Robotics domain
  • Mission-critical automotive domains

Nice to have

  • Hardware-software co-design
  • Schematic reviews
  • Component selection
  • Functional safety
  • Automotive standards
  • ISO 26262 (ASIL B through ASIL D)
  • MISRA C/C++
  • Distributed system timing
  • Hardware synchronization
  • Precision Time Protocol (PTP/gPTP, IEEE 802.1AS)
  • High-performance AV compute platforms
  • NVIDIA DRIVE
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride
  • Data pipeline optimization
  • Hardware accelerators (GPUs, DSPs, NPUs)

What the JD emphasized

  • 5+ years of professional experience developing embedded software using modern C/C++ in RTOS (e.g., FreeRTOS, Embedded Linux) or bare-metal environments.
  • Strong experience writing firmware and device drivers for complex, automotive-grade components, SoCs, and autonomous vehicle sensors (e.g., LiDAR, radar, cameras).
  • Demonstrated experience contributing to embedded hardware systems from initial prototyping and 3rd-party integration through to production deployment—ideally within the autonomous vehicle, robotics, or mission-critical automotive domains.