Staff Software Engineer, Zoox
Core Middleware Components
$217-360k
+ Amazon Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) and Zoox Stock Appreciation Rights
Office located in Foster City, CA
Autonomous vehicle technology
Open for applications
Autonomous vehicle technology
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$217-360k
+ Amazon Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) and Zoox Stock Appreciation Rights
Office located in Foster City, CA
1001+ employees
Company mission
To reimagine transportation from the ground up.
Role
Who you are
- This role demands strong expertise in distributed systems and real-time computing, cross-platform development, and abstraction layer design
- Beyond technical skills, this position requires collaborative leadership to influence and drive technical decisions across teams, foster cross-functional collaboration, and mentor other engineers in best practices
- 8+ years of software development experience and 2+ years of technical leadership experience
- Expert-level proficiency in C++ (C++14/17)
- Extensive experience with robotics frameworks/middleware (e.g., ROS/ROS2)
- Strong background in architecting and developing scalable, distributed applications in Linux environments
- Experience with different processor architectures (X86, ARM)
- Proven experience in high-performance, distributed, and resource-constrained software systems and experience with GPU/accelerated computing environments
What the job involves
- Shipping the software that powers Zoox's revolutionary autonomous vehicles is an extremely challenging job. As the Technical Lead of the Robotics Middleware team, you will be pivotal in designing and developing the middleware framework for our autonomous vehicle software stack
- This role acts as a multiplier for the entire software organization, seeking opportunities to make the software and engineering teams more efficient and productive
- You will regularly tackle complex, cross-functional challenges in the code base that impact multiple teams and provide technical leadership to ensure our stack remains robust, scalable, and safety-critical
- You’ll be responsible for driving performance optimization and ensuring efficient, modular, and maintainable code. Your deep debugging and problem-solving skills will support high-quality solutions across our middleware
- Your excellence in technical communication and documentation, coupled with your ability to balance technical precision with practical delivery, will ensure impactful outcomes across Zoox's software organization
- Solving the unique challenges of autonomous vehicle software—some of the most complex code ever shipped in a safety-critical environment—makes this one of the most exciting technical challenges of our lifetime
- You will lead the technical direction and architecture of our robotics middleware platform
- You will drive the development of platform-agnostic middleware components including software interfaces, task schedulers, data transport layers, diagnostic reporting, and message interfaces
- You will provide technical mentorship and guidance through design reviews and code reviews
- You will collaborate extensively with software teams across the organization to ensure middleware meets all requirements
- You will participate in architecture review boards and technical forums to contribute to technical documentation and establish best practices
- You will maintain a 50/50 balance between hands-on coding and technical leadership and review and approve architecture-level changes that impact the middleware frameworks
Our take
Zoox, a self-driving vehicle company, was founded to make personal transportation safer and more enjoyable for all. It has aimed to achieve this goal by creating a new mode of driverless transportation, thus eradicating the safety and logistical issues that come with human drivers.
It revealed its custom vehicle design in December 2020, showcasing something different from just a car without a driver. Uniquely, all four wheels are independent of one another, and the vehicles have no front or back, making them more agile than a standard car. Zoox claims that it is different from other industry players because it has created an entire driverless ecosystem, including the vehicle itself, allowing it to have more control.
The company is fast becoming a major player in an industry that is predicted to be worth $2 trillion by 2030. Electric motors are highly desirable, particularly in an urban environment, as governments look for ways to reduce emissions and improve air quality. Zoox is aiming to play a vital role in this evolution towards more sustainable urban mobility. Amazon acquired the company in 2020 and, despite a general downturn in the sector through 2022, is building a Zoox factory and budgeting $1 billion per year for future development and production.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Oct 2019
$200m
CONVERTIBLE
Jul 2018
$500m
SERIES B
Total funding: $1.2bn
Company benefits
- Paid parental leave
- Affinity groups and sports clubs
- Work from home opportunities
- Health insurance
- Our crew’s health and happiness is our first priority. We offer comprehensive health and mental health support, a wellbeing program, and unlimited and flexible paid time away
- We invest in our crew—and their families—for the long term. That includes generous family planning support, caregiver support, and strong cash compensation with great equity upside
- We look after our crew when they’re in the office too. Our famous food program is a great example, featuring a daily changing menu of local and sustainable dishes
- There’s a busy calendar of social events at Zoox, with more sports teams than you can count. And, of course, playing with robots is an important part of the job description
Company values
- WE'RE DOING ONE THING THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING: Safer, cleaner, more enjoyable mobility—for everyone. One product and one mission, bringing us together and driving us forward.
- IT’S BIGGER THAN ANY OF US: Collaboration isn’t just something we talk about. It’s the only way we get this done. It takes trust, humility, and openness. And it means we pull together like no other team
- ONE ZOOX, ONE CREW: Zoox is an inclusive, diverse, supportive community. One where we celebrate together, face challenges together, and grow stronger together. And where we work hard to ensure no one is left out and everyone is part of the story.
- EVERY DAY IS A MILESTONE: From each line of code to each mile on the road, everything we do is another step forward in our mission. We ask questions, tackle problems head-on, and celebrate the progress we’re making
Company HQ
Vintage Park, Foster City, CA
Articles
Leadership
Aicha Evans
(CEO, not founder)Having studied at the George Washington University, Aicha started her career with 2 years in Engineering at Skyworks before joining Intel, where she spent over 11 years. She left her role as Corporate Strategy Officer in February 2019 to join Zoox as CEO.
Jesse Levinson
(CTO)Prior to co-founding Zoox, completed a Computer Science PhD at Stanford University. Also created Pro HDR, a million+ selling mobile photography app.
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