Engineering Manager, Software Core Connectivity
Zoox
Listing collected from Zoox's career site. NextChapter is independent of Zoox.
Foster City, CA · $227k–$322k a year · Posted September 21, 2026
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Where Foster City, CA ranks
Where Foster City, CA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #1Best cities for pay after cost of living$209k · of 100
- #1Best cities for pay after cost of living in the West Coast$209k · of 39
- #1Best cities for pay after cost of living in California$209k · of 32
- #1Best cities for director and executive jobs in the West Coast38% · of 71
- #1Best cities for data and analytics pay after cost of living$232k · of 28
- #1Best cities for technology pay after cost of living$209k · of 80
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
Pay compared with the market
This listing pays about $274,500 a year. Across 338 open engineering manager listings that state pay, the middle half runs $150,500 to $250,000 and the median is $200,500. That is 37% above the median, above the middle half of those listings.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
How AI is used in this kind of work
AI use among architectural and engineering managers is little observed so far. Measured exposure for architectural and engineering managers: 3% (little observed).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
Say which you have and which you want to build. We use it to match you to jobs like this one.
About the job
Zoox is building the world's most advanced self-driving hardware and software solution, and nearly every part of it depends on moving data reliably. Sensor frames to perception, planner decisions to vehicle controls, telemetry to the cloud, and remote operator video back down again. All of it crosses process, host, and network boundaries under hard latency and reliability budgets, on a vehicle that has to keep working when a link degrades or a network gets congested. The Software Core Connectivity team owns that data path end to end: in-vehicle messaging (pub/sub, RPC, inter-process and inter-host transport), the vehicle's internal network, and vehicle-to-cloud connectivity. It also owns the transport and serialization abstractions the rest of the software organization builds on. Every one of those paths crosses a team boundary, so the work happens alongside firmware, product security, simulation, manufacturing, and IT, and those partners rely on this team for transport and networking depth to achieve their goals. As the team leader you will own the roadmap and the release commitments, and you will spend a real share of your time in those partnerships.
In this role, you will:
Own the roadmap, staffing, and release commitments across the team's messaging, in-vehicle network, and cloud connectivity work.
Lead and grow a team of software engineers, run their performance and promotion cycles, and hire into the gaps.
Represent the team in cross-functional programs across firmware, product security, simulation, fleet operations, and infrastructure, and build the relationships that keep shared work moving.
Set the technical bar. Make the architecture calls stick, and make sure the abstractions the team ships are ones other teams want to build on.
Balance interrupt-driven reliability work against long-horizon architecture, and be explicit with partners about the tradeoff.
Qualifications
Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, electrical / computer engineering, or equivalent experience.
9+ years of experience in software development, with 4+ years in a leadership role managing software engineers.
Strong grounding in at least one of: networked distributed systems, pub/sub and RPC middleware, vehicle or embedded networking, or transport protocols. Enough depth to hold your own in a design review without needing to run it.
Strong C++ programming experience with large code bases and technical dependencies.
A track record of driving work that spans organizational boundaries, where you did not control the people doing the work.
Bonus Qualifications
Robotics, automotive, aerospace, or another safety-relevant domain.
Hands-on experience with DDS, PTP and time synchronization, QUIC or multipath transport, or Ethernet switch configuration and diagnostics at fleet scale.
Experience building platform abstractions with internal customers, including the migration and adoption side.
About Zoox Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.
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Accommodations If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.
A Final Note: You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.