Software Engineer, Connected Vehicle Platform

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. Role Summary The Berlin team is looking for a Software Engineer - Connected Vehicle Platform, to design, build, and operate software connecting vehicle systems with infotainment, cloud, and mobile ecosystems. You will bridge low-level communication paths and high-level vehicle interfaces, developing reusable platform capabilities while supporting brand-specific configurations. This role combines software development, systems integration, troubleshooting, and developer enablement. You will help turn vehicle signals and hardware capabilities into dependable services, libraries, gateway behaviors, and APIs that partner engineers can discover, integrate, test, and use successfully. The role is well suited to a developer who enjoys working across system boundaries and taking software from design through production support. This role is based in our Berlin office and requires a minimum of three days per week onsite Responsibilities Design, develop, test, and maintain communication services, client libraries, gateway and routing components, and deployment configurations; implement message publication and subscription, request/reply interactions, service discovery, signal routing, gateway translation, and reliable failure handling. Contribute to software components written in C++, Rust, Go, Kotlin, or other languages used across vehicle and cloud platform layers; evolve interface contracts, schemas, configuration models, and generated APIs while preserving compatibility for existing consumers. Decide whether functionality belongs in a reusable platform abstraction, gateway mapping, vehicle service, application, or vehicle- or brand-specific integration; deploy and validate services across vehicle-oriented compute platforms, virtualized embedded environments, simulators, software-in-the-loop systems, benches, and prototype vehicles. Investigate issues across vehicle interfaces, gateways, message-passing services, vehicle-model APIs, and consuming applications using logs, traces, packet captures, diagnostics, and test tools; improve reliability, performance, observability, security, deployment automation, and test coverage. Support partner developers through integration guidance, examples, troubleshooting, documentation, and technical issue triage; collaborate with hardware, firmware, embedded, cloud, infotainment, security, validation, product, and external partner teams. Participate in design reviews, code reviews, incident follow-up, and continuous improvement of engineering practices. Qualifications Degree in Computer Science or related field (or equivalent experience) plus 3+ years developing software in distributed systems, embedded platforms, or middleware; strong C++, Rust, Go, or Kotlin skills across a multi-language platform. Experience with messaging, gRPC, event-driven architectures, distributed systems, and designing or using Protobuf contracts (or equivalent), APIs, and schemas. Familiarity with CAN/DBC, vehicle gateways, signal integration, and connected devices; physical-input or HMI gateway experience is a plus. Ability to deploy and debug on embedded/virtual platforms (Android Automotive, Linux, test benches, simulators) with experience in CI/CD, Docker, or Bazel. Knowledge of mutual TLS, auth, telemetry (Prometheus, OpenTelemetry), and end-to-end troubleshooting