# Embedded Software Engineer, Perception

**Company:** [Parallel Systems](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/parallel-systems)
**Location:** Los Angeles, CA
**Role:** Embedded Engineering
**Salary:** $154k – $212k/yr
**Experience:** 4+ years
**Skills:** embedded linux, linux drivers, Rust, C++, nvidia jetson, nvidia tegra, camera drivers, lidar drivers, CUDA, TensorRT, yocto, v4l2, gstreamer, mipi csi-2, ros2
**Posted:** 2026-08-01

> Build and optimize low-level drivers, kernel modules, and firmware for high-throughput camera and lidar sensors on NVIDIA Jetson platforms for autonomous rail vehicles. Requires 4+ years embedded systems experience, strong Linux internals knowledge, and proficiency in Rust and C++.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain drivers, kernel modules, and firmware for embedded Linux systems running on ARM and NVIDIA (Jetson/Tegra) compute platforms.
- Write low-level systems software in Rust and C/C++ for perception-critical components, from board bring-up through production hardening.
- Build, modify, and optimize drivers for high-throughput sensors such as cameras, lidars, IMUs, including capture pipelines, buffer management, and data integrity under sustained load.
- Own the performance of sensing hardware and drive real-time optimizations — implementing timesync, reducing latency and jitter, eliminating dropped frames, and keeping multi-sensor pipelines deterministic under load.
- Test and validate low-level sensor configuration changes across firmware and sensor revisions to confirm correct behavior under different test conditions.
- Profile and optimize GPU and kernel-level performance on NVIDIA platforms (CUDA, TensorRT, scheduling, memory/IO) to meet real-time constraints for perception workloads.

## What Success Looks Like
**After 30 Days:** You've developed a working understanding of our embedded Linux stack, NVIDIA Tegra/Jetson build system, and sensor architecture. You've identified initial performance bottlenecks and created a development plan to address them.

**After 60 Days:** You've landed driver or kernel-level improvements on at least one sensor pipeline, contributed hands-on to the Yocto/Tegra build alongside the embedded platform team, and built diagnostics for latency, dropped frames, and timing drift. You're actively contributing to the real-time system that handles sensor data ingestion and feeds ML model inference in production.

**After 90 Days:** You own a driver or firmware subsystem end-to-end, with a measurable reduction in latency and jitter and improved timesync across the camera/lidar pipeline. You're contributing to the real-time perception pipeline, including the system handling sensor data and ML model inference, and to GPU/kernel optimization work with clear impact on overall perception throughput.

## Basic Requirements
- Bachelor's or higher degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- 4+ years of hands-on experience in embedded, firmware, or systems software engineering.
- Strong knowledge of Linux internals and driver development on ARM-based platforms.
- Proficiency in Rust and C++ for systems-level programming.
- Experience with NVIDIA embedded platforms (Jetson/Tegra).
- Experience developing or maintaining drivers for high-throughput sensors such as cameras and/or lidar, including data capture, buffering, and timestamp synchronization.
- Comfortable debugging across the hardware/software boundary (device tree, kernel logs, oscilloscope, logic analyzer).
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience working on interdisciplinary teams.

## Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with GPU and kernel-level optimization on NVIDIA platforms (CUDA, TensorRT).
- Experience with Yocto-based builds.
- Hands-on experience with V4L2, GStreamer, MIPI CSI-2 camera stacks.
- Experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, or other safety-critical domains.
- Familiarity with ROS2, sensor fusion, or SLAM.
- Knowledge of and experience contributing to real-time perception streaming pipelines, including GStreamer-based media pipelines.

## Similar roles

- [Embedded Software Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/bd8c878a-8873-4782-8965-5dc32a8fa09b) - Zoox - San Diego, CA - $155k – $190k/yr
- [Embedded Software Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/c52b966f-2f37-4537-8c20-4620727dc9a6) - Zoox - San Diego, CA - $155k – $210k/yr
- [Software Engineer - Motion Planning (Fallback Stack)](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/1f3a5bda-18f9-466b-b34a-014a77390992) - Applied Intuition - Sunnyvale, CA - $151k – $240k/yr
- [Facilities Production Engineer, Controls](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f23392d9-bfe1-4249-be6b-2a07994d96df) - Fluidstack - San Francisco, CA - $150k – $204k/yr
- [Embedded Security Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/5d4f3f24-75c5-4893-b5f3-75bce42d76c2) - Applied Intuition - Sunnyvale, CA - $150k – $242k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/b9e92356-788e-40c9-bea3-bc4e8af1731d
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/b9e92356-788e-40c9-bea3-bc4e8af1731d