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About the job

We’re ALTEN Technology USA, an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to life—from advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3,000+ experts across North America, we partner with leading companies in aerospace, medical devices, robotics, automotive, commercial vehicles, EVs, rail, and more.

As part of the global ALTEN Group—57,000+ engineers in 30 countries—we deliver across the entire product development cycle, from consulting to full project outsourcing.

When you join ALTEN Technology USA, you’ll collaborate on some of the world’s toughest engineering challenges, supported by mentorship, career growth opportunities, and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow.

Workplace : On-Site, 5 days per week Location : Irvine, CA Salary : $140-160k

The Lead Software Engineer owns software and validation work on RTOS-based automotive ECUs, including board bring-up and debugging across hardware and software. You will lead a team that sustains ECUs across several hardware generations. Your engineers will ramp up on the existing codebase, build pipelines, and then enable hardware validation tests.

Responsibilities • Ramp up on the existing codebase, build pipeline, and regression testing • Develop and maintain the software stack for hardware verification and validation of RTOS-based automotive ECUs • Perform board bring-up, verification, and debugging of automotive electronics • Debug and triage across the software and hardware stack, and work with multiple teams to resolve issues • Use build systems, device trees, and kernel driver development (essential) • Communicate clearly with peers, stakeholders, customers, technical leaders, and OEMs/ODMs • Collaborate with architecture, hardware, and software teams on debugging and validation • Train and guide junior engineers • Provide weekly status, risk, and decision documentation to program leadership

Required Qualifications • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field • 8+ years of embedded software experience on microcontrollers such as Infineon, NXP, or ARM • Solid understanding of FreeRTOS or SafeRTOS fundamentals: tasks, scheduling, interrupts, synchronization, and memory management • Experience bringing up or configuring at least one RTOS-based platform • Proficiency with embedded debug tools (JTAG/SWD, Lauterbach or similar, in-circuit debuggers, flashing tools) and lab equipment (oscilloscope, logic analyzer, multimeter, power supplies) • C/C++ for bare-metal and RTOS, plus Python or Rust • Board bring-up and low-level drivers for SPI, I2C, UART, GPIO, timers, ADC/DAC, and external memories • Automotive diagnostics and flashing (UDS, CAN, automotive Ethernet)

Preferred Qualifications • Platform and BSP development for MCU-based ECUs, including clocking, device configuration, and hardware abstraction layers • Experience with hardware components such as sensors and gate drivers • Familiarity with the Infineon SDK and toolchain • ISO 26262 functional safety awareness

Salary Range • $140,000 - 160,000 • The actual salary offered is dependent on various factors including, but not limited to, location, the candidate’s combination of job-related knowledge, qualifications, skills, education, training, and experience

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or pregnancy.

Please beware of job seeker scams and see this important notice on our careers page for more information about our recruiting process.

Compliance Notice: Alten USA is a federal contractor subject to the requirements of the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) and Executive Order 11246. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

Drug Screening Requirement: As a federal contractor, Alten USA maintains a drug-free workplace. All candidates selected for employment will be required to successfully complete a pre-employment drug screening as a condition of hire.