RTOS Development Engineer

Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent systems. For more than four decades, the company has been an innovator and pioneer, powering billions of systems that require the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability.

Wind River helps customers across automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, medical, and telecommunications industries solve complex technology challenges on their journey toward the new intelligent machine economy. The company’s software powers generation after generation of the safest, most secure systems in the world.  Examples include playing a key role in NASA space missions such as Artemis I, the James Webb Space Telescope, and multiple Mars rovers. We’ve achieved recent 5G milestones including the world’s first successful 5G data session with Verizon and building one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world with Vodafone. 

The company has received industry recognition for its technology innovation and leadership, and for its workplace culture, including global Great Place to Work certification and being named a “Top Workplace” for ten consecutive years. If you want to be part of a unique culture where the lived experience is based on our cultural attributes of growth mindset, customer-focus, and diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging, come join us and help advance the future software defined world. 

As an RTOS development engineer, you will contribute to the development of Wind River’s next-generation real-time operating system. You’ll work alongside experienced engineers to design, implement, and validate core OS functionality, while growing your expertise in real-time systems.

This role is ideal for candidates with a strong academic foundation in operating systems—particularly real-time systems—and hands-on experience from demanding courses or projects (e.g., building kernels, schedulers, or synchronization primitives).

• Contribute to the design and implementation of OS components with guidance from senior engineers

• Develop high-quality, maintainable code and tests within a CI/CD and agile environment

• Debug and resolve issues found during testing or reported by internal teams

• Write clear technical documentation for designs and implementations

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including hardware, tools, and verification

• Learn and apply best practices in real-time, safety-critical software development

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, System Design or related field

• 0–3 years of relevant experience, including internships, co-ops, or academic project work

• Knowledge of operating systems concepts, such as:

  • Threads and scheduling (including real-time scheduling)

  • Synchronization (mutex, semaphores, queues)

  • Memory management and virtual memory

  • Interrupts and concurrency

• Excellent programming skills in C

• Hands-on experience implementing OS-level concepts, for example through:

  • A real-time systems course (e.g., University of Seattle CS452 or equivalent)

  • Robotics or other OS systems projects

• Strong problem-solving and debugging skills

• Familiarity with Linux/Unix development environments

• Experience with Git or similar version control systems

• Strong written and verbal communication skills

• Eagerness to learn and grow in a collaborative environment

• Experience with:

  • Embedded or real-time systems, robotics, IoT

  • Low-level development (e.g., drivers, interrupts, hardware interaction)

• Exposure to:

  • Assembly, C++, or Python

  • Performance analysis or concurrency debugging

• Familiarity with real-time constraints (latency, determinism, deadlines)

• Understanding of software development practices such as testing, CI/CD, and code reviews

• Demonstrated excellence in a rigorous systems course (e.g., implementing a kernel, scheduler, or concurrency primitives under real-time constraints)

• Curiosity about how systems work at a low level

• Ability to reason about correctness under concurrency

• Strong ownership of projects, even in early-career settings (course, co-op, or personal work)

• Work closely with experienced OS engineers and technical leaders

• Gain hands-on experience in production-grade RTOS development

• Grow into ownership of subsystems and features over time

This role is compensation range is between $100,000 to $135,000 USD plus annual incentive plan bonus. Compensation is determined through interviews and a review of the education, experience, knowledge, skills, location, and abilities of the applicant, and equity with other team members. Employees in this role are also eligible for the following benefits in accordance with the terms of the Company's plans: health, dental, vision insurance, life insurance, flex time off, eligibility to enroll in 401k, and 12 paid holidays.

Successful candidates must engage in a security clearance process in regard to their citizenship in order to perform fundamental job duties, as per applicable law. In particular, candidates with certain citizenship may not be able to perform such fundamental job duties. Currently, this includes citizens of the following countries: Belarus; Burma; China; Cuba; Iran; North Korea; Syria; Venezuela; Afghanistan; Cambodia; Central African Republic; Cyprus; Democratic Republic of Congo; Ethiopia; Eritrea; Haiti; Iraq; Lebanon; Libya; Russia; Somalia; South Sudan; Sudan; Zimbabwe. The security clearance process may take a significant amount of time to complete, and any offer of employment will be contingent on the candidate's legal ability to perform the fundamental job duties. Wind River is committed to meeting its obligations to candidates under applicable human rights law and privacy law in this regard.

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Aptiv is an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.