Technical Lead – Rust (Safety-Critical Real-Time Systems)
Job Title: Technical Lead – Rust
Location: Mountainview, CA
Duration: 12 months
Domain: Automotive / Embedded Systems
Experience: 8+ years in embedded software development, with 3+ years in technical leadership
Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Embedded Systems
Job Summary
We are looking for an experienced Technical Lead – Rust to design and develop safety-critical embedded software for automotive real-time systems. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in Rust, embedded software development, real-time operating systems, and functional safety standards.
You will lead the architecture and development of low-level platform software, middleware, device drivers, communication stacks, and safety-critical applications running on MCU, MPU, or heterogeneous multicore platforms.
Key Responsibilities
Design, develop, and review safety-critical embedded software using Rust.
Lead software architecture and define system interfaces and technical specifications.
Develop low-level platform components, middleware, device drivers, and system services.
Build deterministic, high-performance real-time applications while optimizing memory footprint, startup time, and CPU utilization.
Apply functional safety principles and support ISO 26262 compliance, including ASIL-B/C/D systems.
Support safety analysis activities, including FMEA, FMEDA, FTA, and DFA.
Develop interrupt-safe, multithreaded, and lock-free components; analyze worst-case execution time (WCET).
Implement secure boot, memory-safe architectures, and secure coding practices.
Integrate Rust components with C/C++, AUTOSAR, Embedded Linux, QNX, and RTOS platforms.
Drive code reviews, unit and integration testing, debugging, CI/CD, and automated quality gates.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver reliable, secure, and maintainable embedded software.
Required Technical Skills
Rust Programming
Strong expertise in Rust, including ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, traits, and generics.
Embedded Rust and no_std development.
Unsafe Rust review, containment, and FFI integration with C/C++.
Async programming and Cargo workspace management.
Embedded Systems and Architecture
Bare-metal programming and MCU/MPU architecture.
ARM Cortex-M, Cortex-R, and Cortex-A processors.
Board Support Packages (BSP), device drivers, memory-mapped peripherals, DMA, interrupts, and watchdogs.
Real-Time Operating Systems
Experience with one or more of the following: FreeRTOS, Zephyr, SafeRTOS, AUTOSAR OS, QNX, or RT Linux.
Strong understanding of hard real-time constraints, scheduling, concurrency, and deterministic system behavior.
Communication Protocols
SPI, I2C, UART, CAN/CAN-FD, Ethernet, TCP/IP, SOME/IP, DDS, BLE, or UWB.
Functional Safety and Quality
ISO 26262 and ASIL-B/C/D development.
MISRA, ASPICE, static analysis, and safety-oriented software development.
Understanding of formal verification concepts and safety case development.
Development Tools
Git/Gerrit, Jenkins/GitHub Actions, CMake/Bazel, QEMU, Lauterbach, Vector CANoe, and SonarQube.
Preferred Qualifications
Automotive ECU, controller, gateway, cockpit, or other safety-critical product development experience.
AUTOSAR Classic/Adaptive, secure ECU communication, vehicle networking, and Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) architectures.
Hardware Security Module (HSM) integration, secure boot, and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE).
Experience with hypervisors, mixed-criticality systems, multicore safety architectures, cryptography, or formal methods.
Familiarity with safety-qualified Rust toolchains.
Strong C/C++ development background, particularly in systems transitioning to Rust.
Experience and Leadership
8+ years of embedded software development experience.
3+ years of technical leadership, architecture ownership, or mentoring engineering teams.
Experience delivering safety-certified products and working with functional safety requirements.
Strong debugging, system-level problem-solving, technical decision-making, and code review skills.
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate combines hands-on Rust expertise with deep embedded systems and real-time engineering knowledge. They understand functional safety requirements, can evaluate and justify unsafe Rust usage, and have experience delivering reliable automotive software under strict timing, memory, and safety constraints.
