Software Design Engineer Jobs in Austin, TX
Software Design Engineer jobs in Austin are in strong demand, concentrated in the Domain, the Central Business District, and East Austin's emerging tech corridor, across semiconductor, enterprise software, and defense tech sectors. Employers actively hiring include Amazon, The University of Texas at Austin, and AMD. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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Tesla's Vehicle Engineering department is made up of thousands of vehicle, battery, and manufacturing engineers. They handle the mechanical and industrial design of every major program, including batteries, Optimus, Robotaxi, and all new factories. Engineering Automation Software, part of Vehicle Engineering, builds the tools these engineers use.
As a Software Engineer on the Design Exchange team, you will build the backend services that deliver Tesla's engineering design data (parts, change actions, CAD files, and access decisions) to the internal applications that depend on it. Our APIs sit between Tesla's hardware design platforms and the long list of consumers across the design and manufacturing process. Optimus, Megapack, and every vehicle program rely on this data flowing reliably.
Joining our team means directly impacting Tesla's ability to communicate critical design data as the company scales to ship millions of products a year from factories around the world.
What You'll Do
- Build gRPC and REST endpoints in Go that securely serve data to engineering and manufacturing applications across the company
- Integrate with Tesla's centralized authorization platform to evaluate attribute-based access policies for access control
- Extend our persistence layer (MySQL,Neo4j) so access and data lookups stay inside a low latency budget
- Migrate existing consumers off the legacy services onto the new platforms, without breaking them
- Own deployment, alerting, and runbooks for the services you build (Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Helm), take on-call rotations, run incidents as Incident Commander, and write actionable incident reports
- Write and review design docs for new services, refactors, and technology choices
- Review code from teammates and give useful feedback
- Maintain accurate Jira tickets so the team can plan capacity, and collaborate with other teams to understand their needs and deliver solutions
- Help with hiring by running technical screens and giving the hiring manager real feedback in panels
What You'll Bring
- Excellent knowledge of at least one statically typed backend language (Go preferred; Java, Kotlin, C++, Rust , etc. experience transferable)
- Experience shipping backend services in production
- Strong understanding of REST and gRPC APIs and microservice architecture
- Comfortable with relational and graph databases, including schema design and efficient querying
- Proficient with Git and Docker, and with observability tools like Prometheus and Grafana
- Excellent written communication skills, including design docs and PR descriptions for async collaboration across time zones
- Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, or ArgoCD is a plus
- Experience with identity and access systems (OAuth, OBO, RBAC, ABAC, OPA) is a plus
- Experience with event streaming or workflow orchestration platforms (Kafka, Temporal) is a plus
- Exposure to PLM or CAD systems (CATIA, 3DX) is a plus. We will teach the domain regardless, but it cuts ramp time
Compensation and Benefits
Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:
- Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction
- Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
- Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution
- Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA
- Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
- 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
- Company paid Basic Life, AD&D
- Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period)
- Employee Assistance Program
- Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays
- Back-up childcare and parenting support resources
- Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance
- Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs
- Tesla Babies program
- Commuter benefits
- Employee discounts and perks program
Tesla is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other factor protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.
Tesla is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your recruiter know if you need an accommodation at any point during the interview process.
Tesla's Vehicle Engineering department is made up of thousands of vehicle, battery, and manufacturing engineers. They handle the mechanical and industrial design of every major program, including batteries, Optimus, Robotaxi, and all new factories. Engineering Automation Software, part of Vehicle Engineering, builds the tools these engineers use.
As a Software Engineer on the Design Exchange team, you will build the backend services that deliver Tesla's engineering design data (parts, change actions, CAD files, and access decisions) to the internal applications that depend on it. Our APIs sit between Tesla's hardware design platforms and the long list of consumers across the design and manufacturing process. Optimus, Megapack, and every vehicle program rely on this data flowing reliably.
Joining our team means directly impacting Tesla's ability to communicate critical design data as the company scales to ship millions of products a year from factories around the world.
What You'll Do
- Build gRPC and REST endpoints in Go that securely serve data to engineering and manufacturing applications across the company
- Integrate with Tesla's centralized authorization platform to evaluate attribute-based access policies for access control
- Extend our persistence layer (MySQL,Neo4j) so access and data lookups stay inside a low latency budget
- Migrate existing consumers off the legacy services onto the new platforms, without breaking them
- Own deployment, alerting, and runbooks for the services you build (Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Helm), take on-call rotations, run incidents as Incident Commander, and write actionable incident reports
- Write and review design docs for new services, refactors, and technology choices
- Review code from teammates and give useful feedback
- Maintain accurate Jira tickets so the team can plan capacity, and collaborate with other teams to understand their needs and deliver solutions
- Help with hiring by running technical screens and giving the hiring manager real feedback in panels
What You'll Bring
- Excellent knowledge of at least one statically typed backend language (Go preferred; Java, Kotlin, C++, Rust , etc. experience transferable)
- Experience shipping backend services in production
- Strong understanding of REST and gRPC APIs and microservice architecture
- Comfortable with relational and graph databases, including schema design and efficient querying
- Proficient with Git and Docker, and with observability tools like Prometheus and Grafana
- Excellent written communication skills, including design docs and PR descriptions for async collaboration across time zones
- Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, or ArgoCD is a plus
- Experience with identity and access systems (OAuth, OBO, RBAC, ABAC, OPA) is a plus
- Experience with event streaming or workflow orchestration platforms (Kafka, Temporal) is a plus
- Exposure to PLM or CAD systems (CATIA, 3DX) is a plus. We will teach the domain regardless, but it cuts ramp time
Compensation and Benefits
Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:
- Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction
- Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
- Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution
- Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA
- Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
- 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
- Company paid Basic Life, AD&D
- Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period)
- Employee Assistance Program
- Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays
- Back-up childcare and parenting support resources
- Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance
- Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs
- Tesla Babies program
- Commuter benefits
- Employee discounts and perks program
Tesla is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other factor protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.
Tesla is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your recruiter know if you need an accommodation at any point during the interview process.
See All 11 Software Design Engineer Jobs in Austin
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Find Software Design Engineer JobsSoftware Design Engineer Job Market in Austin
Who's Hiring
- Amazon2
- The University of Texas at Austin2
- AMD1
- Tesla1
- Google1
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software5
- Retail2
- Education2
- Manufacturing2
- Electronics & Hardware2
Software Design Engineer Jobs in Austin: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a software design engineer job in Austin?
Focus your search on Austin's semiconductor and embedded systems firms clustered around the Domain and North Austin, plus the enterprise software companies headquartered downtown. Candidates who demonstrate hands-on hardware-software integration experience or proficiency in FPGA design and RTL coding stand out in this market. Networking through local IEEE Austin chapter events and Austin tech meetups also opens doors that online applications alone rarely do.
Which companies hire software design engineers in Austin?
Austin software design engineer roles are posted by Amazon, The University of Texas at Austin, and AMD and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. Austin's hiring mix leans heavily toward semiconductor manufacturers, defense contractors, and high-growth enterprise software companies, many of which have relocated or expanded here from Silicon Valley and are building out full engineering teams locally.
Are there remote software design engineer jobs in Austin?
Yes, though software design engineering is less remote-friendly than pure software development roles, since hands-on lab work, hardware prototyping, and cross-functional design reviews often require on-site presence. About 13% of software design engineer openings tied to Austin are remote or hybrid as of June 2026, with the remote-eligible work concentrated in architecture, simulation, and documentation phases of the design cycle.
How can I get a software design engineer job in Austin with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in Austin is targeting associate design engineer or junior hardware engineer roles at mid-size semiconductor and defense firms, which regularly recruit new graduates from UT Austin's electrical and computer engineering programs. Internship-to-hire pipelines at Austin's chip design and embedded systems companies are particularly active. Building a portfolio of personal PCB or FPGA projects and contributing to Austin-area hardware hackathons can meaningfully separate you from other entry-level candidates.
Which industries hire the most software design engineers in Austin?
Austin software design engineer roles concentrate in Technology & Software, Retail, and Education, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. Austin's position as a major semiconductor manufacturing hub, anchored by large chip fabrication and design operations in North Austin and Round Rock, makes it one of the densest markets outside of Silicon Valley for this specific discipline.
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