ECU Lead Architect
Auburn Hills, MI
Position Context
The ECU Lead Architect is the technical authority responsible for the end-to-end definition, integration, and governance of a complex Electronic Control Unit (ECU), including High Performance Computers (HPCs), Zonal Control Units (ZCUs), Domain Controllers, and similar automotive computing platforms.
The role translates vehicle and system requirements into a coherent ECU solution by defining and maintaining the hardware, software, safety, cybersecurity, network, and performance architectures. The ECU Lead Architect ensures consistency across all engineering disciplines and acts as the primary technical interface between System Engineering, Hardware, Software, Functional Safety, Cybersecurity, Validation, Vehicle Integration, and supplier teams.
The ECU Lead Architect is accountable for the technical coherence of the ECU throughout the complete product lifecycle and ensures compliance with quality, safety, cybersecurity, regulatory, performance, cost, and industrialization objectives.
Key Responsabilit s
- Analyze and consolidate functional, safety, cybersecurity, performance, and regulatory requirements allocated to the ECU.
- Establish and maintain the ECU technical baseline and ensure bidirectional traceability between requirements, architecture, implementation, verification, and release deliverables.
- Define, maintain, and govern the ECU hardware, software, safety, cybersecurity, communication, diagnostics, and deployment architectures.
- Define ECU resource allocation strategies, including processors, memory, communication networks, power management, and I/O management.
- Own the ECU pinout architecture and ensure consistency between hardware, software, sensors, actuators, network connectivity, and vehicle integration constraints.
- Perform and govern the allocation of functional, safety, cybersecurity, performance, and non-functional requirements between hardware and software domains.
- Derive and maintain Hardware Functional Requirements, Software Functional Requirements, Hardware Safety Requirements, Software Safety Requirements, and cybersecurity requirements.
- Consolidate hardware/software interfaces, communication interfaces, signal ownership.
- Consolidate ECU state-management concepts, including power modes, startup and shutdown behavior, wake-up management, degraded modes, fault handling, and 12V management strategies.
- Define architectural solutions supporting ISO 26262 Functional Safety and ISO/SAE 21434 Cybersecurity compliance.
- Technical Support to FMEA activities, including Hardware FMEA, Software FMEA, and Safety Mechanism Analysis.
- Define ECU-level verification strategies and performance targets, including startup time, timing constraints, runtime performance, communication performance, and resource utilization.
- Define component and performance component test strategies and support verification and validation activities.
- Own the collection, maintenance, and configuration management of sensor, actuator, and external device datasheets in coordination with DREs and hardware teams.
- Lead technical reviews, architecture reviews, design reviews, and technical risk assessments.
- Coordinate technical convergence across Hardware, Software, Safety, Cybersecurity, Network, Validation, Quality, and Vehicle Integration disciplines.
- Ensure alignment with program quality and industrialization milestones, including APQP, PPAP, PCIEE, and product development governance processes.
- Provide engineering leadership with clear visibility of architecture maturity, technical risks, open issues, and mitigation plans.
Qualifications and Skills
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Science, Embedded Systems, Software Engineering, or a related discipline.
- Significant experience in automotive ECU, system, hardware, or software architecture for complex embedded systems.
- Proven experience delivering HPC, Zonal Controller, Domain Controller, or other safety-critical automotive platforms.
- Strong understanding of vehicle E/E architectures, Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) concepts, centralized computing, and zonal architectures.
- Deep knowledge of embedded hardware platforms, microcontrollers, SoCs, multicore architectures, operating systems, and middleware technologies.
- Strong knowledge of AUTOSAR Classic and/or Adaptive, diagnostics, networking, and service-oriented architectures.
- Experience in requirements engineering, requirement allocation, architecture modeling, and system decomposition.
- Good understanding of ISO 26262 Functional Safety and ISO/SAE 21434 Cybersecurity Engineering.
- Experience performing FMEA, safety analyses, architectural trade-off studies, and technical risk assessments.
- Strong knowledge of automotive communication technologies, including CAN, CAN-FD, LIN, Automotive Ethernet, SOME/IP, and DoIP.
- Familiarity with ASPICE, APQP, PPAP, PCIEE, and automotive product development processes.
- Experience with requirements and lifecycle management tools such as DOORS NG, Polarion, Jama, Jira, Git, or equivalent solutions.
- Strong technical leadership, problem-solving, communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Professional proficiency in written and spoken English.
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