Senior Automotive Embedded Software Engineer

At Sonatus, we’re driving the transformation to AI-enabled software-defined vehicles. Traditional automotive software methods can’t keep pace with consumer expectations shaped by the mobile industry—where features evolve rapidly, update seamlessly, and improve continuously. That’s why leading OEMs trust Sonatus to accelerate this shift. Our technology is already in production across more than 6 million vehicles on the road today and rapidly expanding.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, with 250 employees worldwide, Sonatus combines the agility of a fast-growing company with the scale and impact of an established partner. Backed by strong funding and proven by global deployment, we’re solving some of the most interesting and complex challenges in the industry. Join us and help redefine what’s possible as we shape the future of mobility.

The Opportunity

The Updater team is responsible for the successful deployment of firmware, vehicle applications, and vehicle configurations to the vehicle. The Updater is a key component in delivering a successful software-defined vehicle solution — it's how new features, fixes, and configurations actually reach the car after it leaves the factory. Join us to help build the system that keeps vehicles improving over their entire lifetime. 

In this role, you will participate in the design and implementation of the updater software running on the vehicle. You will contribute to defining the updater interfaces between the cloud and the vehicle, as well as the update agents that handle different types of target assets. You will report directly to the Engineering Manager of Vehicle Development

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain embedded C software for vehicle-side asset update systems, including update orchestration, campaign management, and software distribution
• Implement and integrate communication interfaces for coordination between vehicle services
• Collaborate with cloud platform teams to integrate end-to-end for campaign delivery, status reporting, and asset inventory management
• Write unit tests and integration tests to ensure update reliability and safety across diverse vehicle configurations
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to a culture of software quality and continuous improvement
• Debug and resolve complex cross-layer issues spanning OS, middleware, and application software
• Create and maintain technical documentation for designs, interfaces, and processes

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• 5 years of professional experience in embedded software development or 3 years of experience with MS or higher degree.
• Strong proficiency in modern C
• Experience with embedded Linux or RTOS-based systems
• Understanding of concurrency, memory management, and performance optimization in resource-constrained environments
• Familiarity with inter-process or inter-service communication (RPC frameworks, message passing, pub/sub patterns)
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills at the system level

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with OTA update systems, firmware update mechanisms, or software distribution for embedded devices
• Familiarity with automotive communication protocols (SOME/IP, CAN, UDS, MQTT)
• Knowledge of AUTOSAR (Classic or Adaptive)
• Experience with build systems such as Bazel or CMake

Sunnyvale HQ Benefits & Perks Offered:

• Health care plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Flexible and Dependent Care Expense program
• Retirement plan (401k)
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Unlimited paid time off per year, 14 paid holidays
• Hybrid office work arrangement
• Complimentary lunches, snacks, and beverages during on-site working days
• Wellness benefit allowance
• Phone & Internet reimbursement
• Computer Accessory Allowance