Software Engineer (SE / Sr SE), Data Infrastructure
At a glance
Senior Software Engineering role at PlusAI. Santa Clara · full-time · $120,000–$200,000 base.
techroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Build C++ software that records vehicle sensors, runtime data, selected events and telemetry within onboard resource limits
- Create Python services and libraries to move vehicle data through ingestion, checks, format conversion, cataloging and storage
- Maintain versioned data formats and their C++ and Python interfaces, covering indexing, compression and compatibility
- Improve columnar and lakehouse data access so fleet information works better for mining, replay and analytics
- Follow QMS requirements in your work and help improve those processes
What you bring
- A computer science or related technical degree, or equivalent practical experience
- Modern C++ programming experience and working Python skills for services, libraries and tools
- Linux systems experience spanning concurrency, storage I/O, networking, debugging and performance profiling
- You take ownership, learn quickly and can move projects forward from start to finish
Who this fits
This role suits engineers with systems, robotics, storage or data-infrastructure experience; autonomous-vehicle work is useful but not required. You’ll work primarily in C++ and Python, with the level set according to your experience, technical depth, ownership and impact. The position is hybrid in Santa Clara.
From the employer
Our autonomous-driving fleet generates petabyte-scale sensor and system data. In this role, you will own critical parts of the path that makes this data reliable and useful—from high-throughput recording on the vehicle to transfer, validation, cataloging, and efficient access for replay, analytics, and machine learning. You will work primarily in modern C++ and Python, solving systems challenges across resource-constrained vehicle computers and large-scale offline infrastructure. We welcome engineers from systems, robotics, storage, or data-infrastructure backgrounds; prior autonomous-vehicle experience is helpful but not required.
We are open to candidates at either the Software Engineer or Senior Software Engineer level. Level will be determined by experience, technical depth, scope of ownership, and demonstrated impact. You do not need experience with every technology in our stack; we value strong fundamentals, ownership, and the ability to learn.
Responsibilities:
-
Design and evolve high-throughput C++ systems that continuously record vehicle sensor and runtime data, selectively capture events, and collect system telemetry while operating safely under CPU, memory, disk, and network constraints
-
Build reliable Python data-plane services and libraries for vehicle-data transfer, ingestion, validation, domain-specific format conversion, metadata extraction, cataloging, and storage lifecycle management
-
Evolve versioned vehicle-data formats and their C++ and Python APIs, including indexing, serialization, compression, schema evolution, and backward compatibility
-
Evolve columnar and lakehouse representations and access APIs for vehicle data, improving scalability and performance for fleet-scale mining, replay, and analytics
-
Ensure that your work is performed in accordance with the company’s Quality Management System (QMS) requirements and contribute to continuous improvement efforts
Required Skills:
-
BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
-
Programming experience in modern C++ and working proficiency in Python for services, libraries, and tooling
-
Linux systems knowledge, including concurrency, memory and resource management, filesystem and storage I/O, networking, debugging, and performance profiling
-
Self-driven with a strong sense of ownership: a quick learner who is eager to take responsibility and drive projects forward end to end
Preferred Skills:
-
Familiarity with protobuf, gRPC, compression or media codecs, and native C++/Python bindings
-
Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, ROS or ROS 2, robotics log formats such as rosbag or MCAP, or other high-throughput recording and telemetry systems
-
Experience with columnar data formats or lakehouse table technologies such as Parquet, Delta Lake, or Apache Iceberg