Principal Software Engineering - Build System Modernization

Description

This is a new role, not a replacement for an existing vacancy, and the company is accepting new applications.

The company builds software-defined vehicles and is hiring a principal software engineering leader to modernize and scale the build systems behind them.

Responsibilities

• Lead the move from a legacy Make-based build system to Bazel, the open-source build tool from Google, to make builds faster, more reliable and more robust across engineering.
• Drive this work at scale and shape technical direction across teams.
• Help set ambitious goals for the platform's capabilities.
• Lead productivity and effectiveness work: find opportunities, shape strategy, improve processes, guide change, and tie initiatives to value through innovation, learning and simplification.
• Work hands-on on high-impact efforts and on complex, unusual problems.
• Coach and mentor engineers, balancing technical depth with empathy.
• Modernize a large embedded build and test system by moving Make and shell workflows to Bazel, building infrastructure that is scalable, reproducible, secure and easy for developers to use across repositories, toolchains, CI/CD, testing and releases.
• Assess current build, test, dependency, toolchain and hardware workflows, then define a phased migration strategy and rollout plan.
• Build reusable Bazel rules, macros, toolchains, platforms, configuration patterns and repository standards.
• Migrate embedded applications, libraries, generated code, firmware, cross-compilation flows and platform variants, confirming build parity and reproducibility.
• Connect Bazel to enterprise CI/CD, testing, release, artifact, deployment, observability, security and infrastructure workflows.
• Improve the platform through caching, parallelism, reliability practices, documentation, training, retirement of legacy Make, and ongoing improvement.
• Measure success by repositories migrated with build and test parity, shorter clean and incremental builds, CI queue and feedback times, higher reproducibility, hermetic toolchain adoption, cache effectiveness, CI capacity, and lower build, pipeline and flaky-test rates.
• Cut diagnosis and recovery time, ensure full artifact provenance, test evidence and security-policy compliance for releases, and drive developer adoption, lower support load and measurable productivity gains.
• Evaluate AI-enabled engineering workflows using measurable quality, adoption and productivity results.

Requirements

• A bachelor's degree in software engineering or equivalent experience.
• 15 years of software development experience.
• 10+ to 15+ years of experience in software development.
• A deep understanding of software architecture for real-time systems.
• Experience shipping high-quality, safety-critical products.
• Exceptional problem-solving and analytical skills, with close attention to detail.
• The ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced setting and make action-oriented decisions.
• Strong experience building and maintaining production software systems, with proficiency in Python and at least one other language used in engineering tooling.
• Experience in automotive, embedded, safety-related, calibration or systems-engineering environments.
• Experience with large-scale migration from Make or shell-based build orchestration to Bazel.
• Experience with AI-assisted developer productivity, coding agents, code intelligence, knowledge retrieval or workflow orchestration.
• Experience evaluating AI-enabled engineering workflows using measurable quality, adoption and productivity outcomes.

Conditions

Hybrid role: you are expected to work from the Markham or Oshawa office at least three days per week.

Artificial intelligence will be used in the hiring process for this role.

The company does not provide immigration sponsorship for this role. Do not apply if you will need immigration sponsorship from the company now or in the future.

Role-related assessments and/or a pre-employment screening may be required before you start.

The company is committed to a workplace free of unlawful discrimination that also fosters inclusion and belonging.

Benefits

• Paid time off, including vacation days, holidays, and supplemental leave for pregnancy, parental and adoption leave.
• Healthcare, dental and vision coverage.
• Life insurance for you and your family.
• Company and matching contributions to a Defined Contribution Pension plan to help you save for retirement.
• GM Vehicle Purchase Plan for you and your family.
• Other benefits as part of the company's Canadian total rewards program.