General Motors is seeking a software engineering leader to modernize and scale the build systems that support software-defined vehicles. This role will help lead the transition from a legacy Make-based system to Bazel, Google's open-source build tool, improving speed, reliability, and robustness across the engineering organization.The successful candidate will drive this capability at scale, influence technical direction across teams, and help establish lofty platform capability goals.
What You'll Do:
Lead software engineering productivity and effectiveness by identifying opportunities, shaping strategies, improving processes, guiding change, and connecting initiatives to deliver greater value through innovation, learning, and simplification.
Lead high-impact efforts hands-on, solve complex and unusual problems, and communicate effectively as a coach and mentor while balancing technical command with empathy.
Modernize a large embedded-software build and test system by transitioning legacy Make- or shell-based workflows to Bazel and establishing scalable, reproducible, secure, and developer-friendly infrastructure across repositories, toolchains, CI/CD, testing, and release processes.
Assess current build, test, dependency, toolchain, and hardware workflows to define a phased Bazel migration strategy and rollout model.
Design and implement reusable Bazel rules, macros, toolchains, platforms, configuration patterns, and repository standards, while migrating embedded applications, libraries, generated code, firmware, cross-compilation flows, and platform variants with validated build parity and reproducibility.
Integrate Bazel with enterprise CI/CD, testing, release, artifact, deployment, observability, security, and infrastructure workflows, and optimize the platform through caching, parallelism, reliability practices, documentation, training, legacy Make retirement, and continuous improvement.
Measure success through target repositories migrated with validated build and test parity; faster clean and incremental builds, CI queues, and developer feedback; increased reproducibility, approved hermetic-toolchain adoption, cache effectiveness, and CI capacity; and lower build, pipeline, and flaky-test rates.
Improve diagnosis and recovery time while ensuring complete artifact provenance, test evidence, and security-policy compliance for releases, strong developer adoption, reduced support burden, and measurable productivity improvement.
Hold a bachelor's degree in software engineering or have equivalent experience, along with 15 years of software development experience.
Bring a deep understanding of real-time software architecture and experience shipping high-quality, safety-critical products in automotive, embedded, safety-related, calibration, or systems-engineering environments.
Demonstrate exceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities, keen attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in fast-paced, action-oriented decision-making environments.
Bring strong expertise building and maintaining production software systems, proficiency in Python and at least one additional engineering-tooling language, and experience with AI-assisted developer productivity, coding agents, code intelligence, knowledge retrieval, or workflow orchestration.
Evaluate AI-enabled engineering workflows using measurable quality, adoption, and productivity outcomes.
Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications):
Bachelor's degree in software engineering or or equivalent experience
10+ years of experience in software development
Deep understanding of software architecture for real time systems
Exceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities, with a keen attention to detail
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-pacedenvironment.
Demonstrated ability to work in an action-oriented decision-making environment
Strong expertise building and maintaining production software systems, with proficiency in Python and at least one additional language used in engineering tooling environments
Automotive, embedded, safety-related, calibration, or systems-engineering environments.
Large-scale migration from Make or shell-based build orchestration to Bazel.
Evaluation of AI-enabled engineering workflows using measurable quality, adoption, and productivity outcomes.
Key Deliverables:
Assess current Make-based build, test, dependency, toolchain, and hardware workflows, then define a phased Bazel migration strategy and rollout model.
Design and implement reusable Bazel rules, macros, toolchains, platforms, configuration patterns, and repository standards for embedded software.
Migrate embedded applications, libraries, generated code, firmware, cross-compilation flows, and platform variants while ensuring build parity and reproducibility.
Integrate Bazel with enterprise CI/CD, testing, release, artifact, deployment, observability, security, and infrastructure workflows.
Optimize and operationalize the platform through caching, parallelism, reliability practices, documentation, training, legacy Make retirement, and continuous improvement.
Measures of Success:
Target repositories migrated with validated build and test parity.
Reduced clean and incremental build time, CI queue time, and developer feedback time.
Increased reproducibility, approved hermetic-toolchain adoption, cache effectiveness, and CI capacity.
Lower build, pipeline, and flaky-test rates, with improved diagnosis and recovery time.
Complete artifact provenance, test evidence, and security-policy compliance for releases.
Strong developer adoption, reduced support burden, and measurable productivity improvement.
What Will Give You A Competitive Edge (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
Company Vehicle
Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, though which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.
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
The range for this role is 171,150 and 288,500. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
Bonus Potential
An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
Benefits
GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs. Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.
This role is based remotely, but if the selected candidate lives within a specific mile radius of a GM hub, they will be expected to report to the location three times a week {or other frequency dictated by your manager}.
Relocation benefits are available for candidates who qualify under company policy.
About GM
Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.
Why Join Us
We believe we all must make a choice every day - individually and collectively - to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.
Total Rewards | Benefits Overview
From day one, we're looking out for your well-being-at work and at home-so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.
Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)
General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.
All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.
We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.
Accommodations
General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us [email protected] or call us at 1-800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.
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About the role
This is a Senior Level role in the Technology field (Software engineering) at General Motors. Senior roles usually expect substantial experience, ownership of results and often the ability to guide others.
We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.
Does the pay work here? (estimate)
Estimate for a wage earner: 2026 federal brackets and standard deduction (IRS), Social Security 6.2% up to $184,500, Medicare 1.45% (+0.9% above $200,000 single / $250,000 married), and a state rate you set; set your own state tax rate. It ignores credits, pre-tax deductions, local taxes and benefits. Sources: IRS: tax year 2026 inflation adjustments · SSA wage base per Federal Register notice 2025-19763.
How to prepare and behave
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Read the whole description and match your examples to its requirements; use the same words the posting uses where they are true for you.
Research the employer before the interview: what it does, who its customers are and recent news; prepare two or three questions about the work.
Arrive early (or log in early for a video call), dress one step above the daily dress code, and test your camera and audio beforehand.
Answer with short stories: the situation, what you did and the result. Give numbers when you have them and never invent them.
Be honest about gaps; say what you did to learn and how fast you can close them.
Ask about the team, the first 90 days, how success is measured and the schedule; do not open with salary and time off.
When pay comes up, know the market range for the occupation and your lowest acceptable offer before you answer; ask for the full package in writing.
Send a short thank-you message within a day, mentioning one thing you discussed.
The listing mentions a remote or flexible location. Confirm with the employer whether remote work applies to your state: taxes, licensing and benefits can depend on where you live.
Have code, data work or projects you can show, and be ready to think aloud: many technical interviews test how you reason, not only the answer.
The job is in Austin, TX. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.
How Austin compares. Among the 120 largest places in Texas, Austin is #4 by population, #5 for remote work (#1 = most), #111 for homeownership (#1 = highest), #13 for college degrees (#1 = most). Its county, Travis County, is #5 of 254 counties for average pay ($96,267).
The place in numbers
Austin has 979,539 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 3.2% of the population of Texas. It covers 326 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 3,001 people per square mile. The median age is 34.7, about the same as the state median (34.7 against 35.6).
Housing
The median gross rent is $1,729 a month (rent plus utilities), 23% above the state median ($1,729 against $1,403). Over a year that is 22.2% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is $555,300, which is 5.9 times the median household income ($93,658); a ratio above 5 usually means buying is out of reach without savings or a second income. 43.5% of households own their home, 31% below the state average (43.5% against 62.6%). A low ownership share points to a rental-heavy market with more apartments and shorter stays.
Work and pay
The Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX metropolitan area has 1,293,690 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $56,950 a year, 12% above the national median ($56,950 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are office and administrative support (159,340 jobs, median $47,770); management (133,950 jobs, median $129,060); food preparation and serving related (120,570 jobs, median $33,280). The area is most specialised in computer and mathematical (1.9 times) and architecture and engineering (1.5 times), where the share of workers is well above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($129,060) and computer and mathematical ($114,350). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of Travis County was 3.6%. 75.1% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in Travis County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.
Getting around
Among workers, 56.0% drive alone, 2.0% use public transit, 2.5% walk, 30.7% work from home. 10.2% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 40% below the state average (10.2% against 16.9%). Remote work is more common than in the state as a whole, which widens the set of employers a resident can work for without moving.
People and education
59.6% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 76% above the state share (59.6% against 33.8%). 18.7% of residents were born outside the United States, 7% above the state share (18.7% against 17.6%). The poverty rate is 12.0%, 13% below the state rate (12.0% against 13.8%).
Climate
The warmest month is Aug, averaging 86°F (30.1°C), and the coolest is Jan at 49°F (9.3°C). About 841 mm (33 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; May is the wettest month (111 mm) and Feb the driest (45 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.
Nearby cities to compare
Closest cities in this guide: Pflugerville (14 miles, rent 12% higher); Cedar Park (15 miles, rent 7% higher); Round Rock (17 miles, similar rent); Leander (20 miles, rent 12% higher). Rent differences are against Austin; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.
These links go to official sources and open in a new window. The first one is the government's or company's own site as listed in Wikidata (property "official website"); check it before relying on it.
Places within 50 miles (straight line) of Austin, TX that have a guide, with what living there costs. No pay estimate is shown because the title did not match one occupation.
Company description (from The Muse): At GM, we pioneer the innovations that move and connect people to what matters. Our vision is a world with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion. Our diverse team of over 165,000 employees brings their collective passion for engineering, technology and design to deliver on this ambitious future. And the bold commitments we’ve made are moving us closer to realizing this vision.
We firmly believe that each of us has the power to drive meaningful change through our words, actions, and culture. At General Motors, we foster a culture where all ideas are taken into consideration, and where everyone can contribute to their fullest potential. Our foundation is built on respect, integrity, accountability, and equality.
size: Large Size; industries: Consumer Goods & Services, Engineering, Manufacturing, Technology; locations on The Muse: Detroit, MI.
These links go to official sources and open in a new window. The first one is the government's or company's own site as listed in Wikidata (property "official website"); check it before relying on it.
What it is like to work at a company (culture, schedules, benefits) is not in the source data, so we do not describe it. Read the description and ask the questions under "How to prepare".
What is the Staff Software Engineer - Build System Modernization job at General Motors?
A senior level role in technology (software engineering) listed 40 days ago. The full description is on this page and on The Muse.
Where is this job?
Austin, TX. A remote or flexible location is listed; confirm with the employer which states are accepted.
How do I apply?
Use the "View this job and apply on The Muse" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.
How much does it pay?
The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.
What is the cost of living there?
Median rent in Austin is $1,729 a month and median household income $93,658 (ACS 2020–2024).
How old is this listing?
It was posted on 2026-09-29 (40 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.
Are there similar jobs?
Yes: browse software engineering jobs in Texas.
Sources and terms
Job data: The Muse public API (listing dated 2026-09-29). The job disappears from this site when it disappears from the source.
Wages and projections: BLS OEWS (May 2025) and Employment Projections 2025–35.
City and county figures: Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024, BEA, BLS QCEW and LAUS, NASA POWER climatology; distances from Census Gazetteer coordinates.
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