Staff DevOps Software Engineer- Firmware & CI/CD

About Us

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders with a clear vision for automotive’s next chapter. From operating systems to zonal controllers to cloud and connectivity solutions, we’re addressing the challenges of electric vehicles through technology that will set the standards for software-defined vehicles around the world.

The road to the future is uncharted. By combining our expertise across connectivity, AI, security and more, we’ll map a new way forward. Working together, we’ll create a future that’s more connected, more intelligent, more sustainable for everyone.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies Canada is proud to be a Great Place To Work® Certified company — 92% of employees at RV Tech Canada say it is a great place to work, compared to 60% at a typical company.

Role Summary

The Build & Release team is the backbone of our software development lifecycle. We don't just "run operations" — we engineer the mechanisms that create software for our vehicles. Our mission is to provide a seamless, high-performance developer experience where pipelines are invisible, and deployments are stable. As a Staff Engineer, you will set the technical direction for build and release engineering across the org, solving our hardest infrastructure problems and multiplying the effectiveness of the teams around you.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical strategy and architecture for scalable, fault-tolerant CI/CD pipelines spanning multiple teams and product lines.

• Own and evolve the technical vision for build system integrity, setting standards that other engineers and teams are held to.

• Lead the evaluation, onboarding, and architectural integration of new components, software stacks, and build technologies org-wide.

• Drive build-vs-buy decisions on third-party and open-source software, setting integration patterns others follow.

• Identify systemic gaps in developer productivity and lead the design and delivery of tools that improve the experience for the entire engineering org.

• Act as a technical authority across development, QA, and release management, resolving cross-team design tradeoffs and influencing how other teams plan releases.

• Partner directly with senior cross-functional stakeholders to translate ambiguous business needs into engineering roadmaps, often defining the requirements themselves.

• Set the standard for production system reliability — establishing monitoring, incident response, and performance practices that other engineers adopt.

• Architect containerization and orchestration strategy (Docker, Kubernetes) at a platform level, making build-vs-reuse decisions that affect multiple teams.

• Serve as a key technical bridge between software development and vehicle deployment, mentoring engineers and raising the technical bar across the build automation domain.

• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, and contribute to hiring, technical interviewing, and team-level technical decision-making..

Qualifications

• Experience: 8+ years of industry experience as a DevOps/Build & Release Engineer or similar, including demonstrated technical leadership on multi-team or org-wide initiatives.

• Education: BS or MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

• Technical Proficiency: Deep expertise designing and scaling CI/CD systems (GitLab-CI, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Buildkite) and Infrastructure-as-Code tooling (Terraform, Helm, Ansible) at an architectural level.

• Software Build Systems: 3+ years of hands-on experience with build tools like Bazel, GNU Make, CMake, Gradle, including experience architecting or migrating build systems at scale.

• Coding Skills: Advanced scripting and automation expertise in Python, Go, Bash, or similar, with a track record of building tools/platforms used by many engineers.

• Cloud/Infra: Deep, hands-on expertise with Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure), including platform-level design decisions.

• Observability: Expert-level experience designing observability strategy using tools like DataDog, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, or ELK Stack.

• Mindset: You treat "Operations" as a first-class engineering discipline and have a track record of driving org-wide improvements to Developer Experience.

• Influence: Proven ability to lead without direct authority — setting technical direction, influencing roadmaps, and raising the bar for engineering practices across teams.

• Growth: Deep curiosity about the unique challenges of delivering software to hardware/vehicles, with the judgment to make tradeoffs in ambiguous, high-stakes environments.

• Communication: Excellent communication skills, with experience presenting technical strategy to senior stakeholders and building consensus across engineering orgs.

   

Total Rewards

Full-time positions include base salary, eligibility for an annual performance bonus, and eligibility for equity.

In addition to base salary, Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies offers benefits tailored to the local market. For more information on the benefits available for full-time employees, check out our Global Benefits Site.

External candidates can apply for this role through the Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies careers site (https://rivianvw.tech/#careers). If you are a current employee, please apply through our internal job board.

Equal Opportunity

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law. We are also committed to ensuring compliance with all applicable fair employment practice laws regarding citizenship and immigration status.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at [email protected].

Candidate Data Privacy

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies” may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) record keeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies affiliates; and (iii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies’ service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.

If you provide a mobile telephone number as part of your application or during the recruitment process, Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may use that number to contact you via SMS text message for recruitment-related purposes, including scheduling, logistics, and status updates. Message and data rates may apply. You may opt out of SMS communications at any time by replying STOP to any text message you receive from us. Consent to receive SMS messages is not a condition of applying for or being considered for employment.

Please see our Candidate Data Privacy Notice (English) and Candidate Data Privacy Notice (Serbian) for more information.

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Please note this job posting represents an open, active vacancy. Additionally, we are not currently accepting applications from third party application services.