Staff Software Engineer – OTA Platform

Ford Motor Company

Core contributor to In-Vehicle OTA Platform building software for Ford’s Universal Electric Vehicle fleet. Engage in OTA software update service with Rust application.

Posted 6/10/2026full-timePalo Alto • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $150,200 - $283,500 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

CloudDistributed SystemsLinuxRust

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own and evolve the OTA software update engine.
Design and implement reliable, safe update orchestration logic.
Write production-quality async Rust with a focus on correctness, safety, and maintainability.
Build and contribute to cutting-edge developer tooling that lets engineers create and manage software update deployments.
Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, container infrastructure, and multi-target build systems.
Participate in code review with a high signal-to-noise bar: focus on correctness and reliability.
Collaborate across embedded firmware, vehicle software, and cloud infrastructure teams to coordinate update flows end-to-end.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.
7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with 3+ years writing production Rust, or strong, demonstrable C++ expertise with a clear appetite to work in Rust.
Strong command of async programming, including the Tokio runtime and concurrent system design.
Solid Linux systems experience–you are comfortable developing, debugging, and operating software in Linux environments.
Demonstrated experience designing and implementing state machines for distributed or embedded systems.
Strong testing discipline: unit, integration, and mock-driven testing.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and modern build systems.
Excellent written communication — you write documentation your teammates actually read.
Even better, you may have...
Experience with automotive systems, OTA software updates, or vehicle ECU communication protocols such as UDS, CAN, or LIN.
Familiarity with Yocto/BitBake for embedded Linux image builds and cross-compilation.
Background in serialization strategies and schema evolution for distributed systems.
Cross-compilation experience for embedded or constrained targets.
Experience packaging and distributing developer tooling to engineering teams.
Experience in regulated industries where software reliability and traceability are required (automotive, medical, aerospace).
Comfort working alongside AI coding agents and integrating AI-assisted workflows into day-to-day engineering.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
Tuition assistance
Established and active employee resource groups
Paid time off for individual and team community service
A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

RustC++async programmingTokio runtimeLinux systemsstate machinesunit testingintegration testingmock-driven testingcross-compilation

Soft Skills

written communicationcollaborationcode reviewtesting discipline

Certifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer ScienceBachelor's Degree in Software Engineering