The Role 

The Core OS group is a newly formed team building the operating-system foundation GM's next generation of vehicle software runs on: hypervisors and virtualization, safety partitioning and health management, container runtime and workload orchestration, and the boot and secure-boot chain that let Linux, Android, and QNX share a single high-compute platform safely and efficiently. As Principal Software Engineer, you are the senior technical authority and system architect for that layer — you'll determine which platform problems matter most, then define the architecture and drive the solutions that solve them, setting long-term direction for virtualization, partitioning, and platform services across GM's vehicle compute. Your influence extends well past your own code: establishing the technical interfaces to the silicon, guest OS, and functional-safety organizations, driving decisions with hypervisor and silicon partners, and guiding engineers across multiple teams toward a foundation that must hold up to production performance, reliability, and safety requirements in millions of vehicles. 

What You’ll Do 

• Define and drive the architecture and long-term roadmap for GM’s Core OS layer, including hypervisors, virtualization, virtual machine lifecycle, resource partitioning, inter-virtual-machine communication, and the boot and secure-boot chain. 

• Architect the multi-operating-system foundation that enables embedded Linux, including Yocto-based distributions, Android, and QNX to run on shared vehicle compute with consistent platform services and interfaces. 

• Establish the platform safety architecture, including freedom from interference between partitions, health monitoring, fault detection and recovery, in partnership with functional safety and cybersecurity organizations. 

• Define the container and workload-management architecture for on-vehicle execution, including isolation, lifecycle management, resource governance, and updateability. 

• Own the system-level performance strategy across compute efficiency, latency, boot time, memory footprint, and deterministic behavior, and lead optimization efforts across software and hardware boundaries. 

• Drive build-versus-buy and technology-selection decisions for hypervisor, real-time operating system, and runtime components, and lead technical relationships with the corresponding suppliers. 

• Provide technical mentorship and direction to Staff and Senior Software Engineers while establishing engineering standards and review practices for the new organization. 

• Lead complex investigations and root-cause analyses across virtualization, operating-system, and silicon boundaries. Represent Core OS in technical councils, architecture reviews, and cross-functional design forums, and define ownership boundaries with adjacent platform teams. 

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications) 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field; or equivalent experience. 

• Fifteen or more years of experience in embedded, kernel-level, or systems software development, including production-grade systems. 

• Proven experience architecting operating-system or virtualization platforms for high-performance or safety-critical systems. 

• Deep expertise in at least two of the following areas:

• Type 1 hypervisors and virtualization

• Real-time operating systems

• Embedded Linux internals

• Secure boot and platform integrity

• Strong knowledge of Arm system-on-chip (SoC) architecture, including memory management, interrupt and input/output virtualization, and hardware-enforced isolation mechanisms.

• Experience leading multi-team or cross-functional technical programs from concept through production.

• Proficiency with modern development tools and practices, including Git, GitHub, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), automated testing, and performance profiling.

• Strong communication and influence skills across technical, cross-functional, and executive audiences.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications) 

• Master’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field. 

• Hands-on architecture experience with hypervisor technologies such as Gunyah, QNX Hypervisor, Xen, or KVM/Arm, including virtio-based device virtualization. 

• Expertise in automotive functional safety, including Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) decomposition, safety-island architecture, freedom-from-interference arguments, and safety-framework integration. 

• Experience with container runtimes and workload orchestration in resource-constrained or embedded environments. 

• Familiarity with Yocto-based Linux distributions, Android Open Source Project (AOSP) or Android Automotive, and QNX Software Development Platform (SDP) as guest or host environments. 

• Familiarity with health monitoring, fail-operational and fail-safe mechanisms, and platform-resiliency design. 

• Experience with Adaptive Automotive Open System Architecture (AUTOSAR), Software Defined Vehicle Open Architecture for Embedded Edge (SOAFEE), or comparable automotive platform standards. 

• Experience with over-the-air (OTA) and continuous-update architectures. 

• Contributions to open-source virtualization or operating-system projects. 

• Proven ability to set technical vision, influence across organizations, and represent a company in cross-industry engagements.