Staff Hardware Engineer - ECU Requirements & Specifications
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Warren, Michigan, United States of America
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 7+ years
- Category
- Hardware
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, or a related engineering discipline.
- At least 7 years of engineering experience in product development, technical requirements, specifications, embedded controls, or a related technical discipline.
- Demonstrated leadership of complex technical programs or initiatives, including the ability to influence outcomes without direct authority.
- Good knowledge and practical experience with structured requirements-management tools such as DOORS, DOORS Next-Gen, Jama, or Polarion.
- Ability to manage complex requirements across multiple CTRS use cases while maintaining commonality, reuse, alignment, configuration control, and traceability across a portfolio.
- Strong competency in writing, interpreting, and reviewing ECU hardware technical requirements, with the ability to translate complex technical content into clear decisions and actionable outcomes.
- Strong oral communication, teamwork, and cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to clearly present technical requirements and align stakeholders.
- Strong understanding of automotive embedded control systems, including ECU hardware, low-level software interfaces, diagnostics, failure modes, and electrical or mechatronic architectures.
- Knowledge of microcontrollers, memory technologies, and vehicle serial communications such as Ethernet, CAN, LIN, SENT, and SERDES.
- Knowledge of semiconductor physics, structures, fundamentals, models, and failure mechanisms.
- Knowledge of GM product-development cycles, automotive product-release processes, and technical specification practices.
- Strong oral and written communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical content into clear decisions and actions.
- Results-driven, proactive approach to solving problems involving complex system interactions.
- Ability to provide technical leadership, collaboration, and mentorship across diverse engineering teams.
- Demonstrated commitment to safe, reliable, high-quality vehicle systems.
Nice to have
- At least 10 years of relevant engineering experience in product development, technical requirements, specifications, embedded controls, or related technical disciplines.
- Master of Science degree in Engineering or a related field.
- Experience developing ECU circuit-level requirements and supporting product development, analysis, validation, or design changes for safety-critical systems.
- Deep knowledge of safety-critical embedded controls and experience with an automotive subsystem or another complex safety system.
- Experience applying functional-safety standards such as ISO 26262, IEC 61508, IEC 62304, or DO-178C to hardware and low-level software requirements.
- Experience with Electric Vehicle electrical/electronic architectures, including high-voltage propulsion, battery-management, charging, or control systems.
- Experience configuring, adapting, or customizing DOORS or DOORS Next-Gen to support consistent requirements management and deployment.
- Experience developing robust, maintainable C-language prototypes for hardware I/O and low-level software implementations.
- DFSS Black Belt Certification.
- Familiarity with ECU safety analysis methods and tools, including DFMEA, FMEDA, FTA, FIT-rate analysis, or related reliability and failure-analysis techniques.
- Experience with automation, artificial intelligence, data-driven analysis, or competitive benchmarking applied to engineering requirements and documentation processes.
Full description
Job DescriptionAbout the Team
Compute & Connectivity Hardware (CCH) is part of GM’s Software & Services organization and owns the hardware foundation for GM’s software-defined vehicles. The team develops and integrates the compute, connectivity, networking, and electronic platforms that support vehicle intelligence, infotainment, ADAS, mechatronic controls, connected services, and over-the-air experiences.
CCH work spans architecture, requirements, hardware design, embedded systems, cybersecurity, functional safety, integration, validation, launch, and field performance. Our engineers collaborate across software, systems, controls, vehicle engineering, suppliers, and manufacturing to solve complex technical problems and deliver reliable, production-ready hardware across GM’s vehicle portfolio.
The Opportunity
Electronic Control Units (ECUs) are central to GM’s Software Defined Vehicle and electrified-vehicle architectures. The ECU Hardware Requirements & Specifications team is seeking a highly experienced Staff Hardware Engineer to provide technical leadership for the development, management, and continuous improvement of hardware requirements, low-level software definitions, and Component Technical Requirements Specifications (CTRS) across GM’s vehicle portfolio.
This role is for a recognized technical leader who can operate across hardware, software, vehicle, electrical architecture, diagnostics, safety, sourcing, manufacturing, and external engineering organizations. The Staff Engineer will shape technical direction, establish common solutions, resolve complex system interactions, and influence decisions across the portfolio without direct people-management responsibility.
The ideal candidate combines deep knowledge of automotive embedded control systems with strong requirements-engineering discipline, systems thinking, business judgment, and the ability to translate complex technical issues into clear decisions and executable outcomes. They will help advance common, traceable, high-quality ECU requirements and support the continued modernization of GM’s requirements-management practices, including DOORS Next-Gen, automation, and leveraging AI to improve requirement quality.
The Role
As a level-8 Staff Engineer, you will serve as a technical authority for ECU hardware requirements and specifications. You will lead complex technical projects, establish alignment across dependent engineering organizations, mentor engineers, and drive decisions through influence, technical rigor, and clear communication.
You will support build-to-spec and build-to-print ECU designs across GM’s diverse vehicle and electrical architectures, including electrification and Electric Vehicle applications. Your work will enable standardized hardware designs, component commonization, requirements reuse, seamless software implementation, and effective downstream verification and validation. You will actively use AI tools to enhance and improve our requirement development process.