Staff Software Engineer, OTA Platform

About the role

The Over-the-Air (OTA) Platform team builds the software delivery backbone for the vehicle, including firmware updates and configuration management. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will anchor and grow the OTA engineering capability at the Berlin site, driving technical direction and ensuring site contributions integrate into the global architecture. You will work in close collaboration with the core OTA team in Palo Alto to define architecture-level decisions for OTA features.

Responsibilities

• Develop OTA features and services covering firmware update delivery, ECU/software configuration updates, and software-hardware mismatch detection and remediation.
• Collaborate daily with the OTA development team in Palo Alto on system architecture, API contracts, and release planning.
• Design update strategies that guarantee safe, resumable, and rollback-capable updates across heterogeneous ECUs.
• Define and evolve the software/hardware compatibility framework, including version dependency graphs and campaign eligibility rules.
• Drive interface and contract discussions with cloud/backend teams to keep vehicle-side and cloud-side assumptions in sync.
• Ensure OTA processes meet automotive security and safety expectations, including secure boot and cryptographic signing.
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to Senior and mid-level engineers on the Germany team.

Required skills

• C++
• Rust
• Embedded Linux
• POSIX
• CAN/CAN-FD
• Automotive Ethernet
• SOME/IP
• UDS/DoIP
• TLS
• MQTT
• gRPC
• Protobuf
• Cryptography

Nice to have

• OTA systems
• Machine Learning
• AUTOSAR Adaptive
• Yocto
• ISO 26262
• ISO/SAE 21434
• SBOM
• HIL testing

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or a related field
• Equivalent practical experience

Benefits

• Health coverage
• Retirement savings
• Time off
• Family planning programs
• Annual company performance bonus
• Equity

About the Company

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders focused on automotive software, from operating systems to cloud and connectivity solutions. The company aims to address the challenges of electric vehicles through technology that sets standards for software-defined vehicles.