Principal Charging Software Engineer

Reports to Chief Engineer - Charging Hardware.

This role requires a full-time onsite presence in Durham, NC.

We are only able to consider candidates who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (green card holders) and who do not require current or future visa sponsorship of any sort.

Welcome to IONNA, the joint venture founded by eight global automotive leaders: BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes‑Benz, Stellantis, and Toyota. IONNA is revolutionizing the EV charging landscape in North America by creating a high‑powered charging network set to redefine the way we drive.

Our Mission:
Make EV charging reliable, accessible, and convenient. With a commitment to deploying a minimum of 30,000 chargers across North America, we are reshaping the future of electric mobility, exceeding industry standards and leading the charge toward a sustainable, zero‑emission tomorrow.

The Principal Charging Software Engineer owns charger software end-to-end: firmware quality, the charging‑software roadmap, cross‑cutting software architecture, and the full software development lifecycle (SDLC) with our charger vendor. As the charger portfolio grows and on‑board software becomes increasingly complex, this role ensures software stops being the constraint on reliability, directly defending the uptime and first‑plug‑success metrics that drivers, OEMs, and third‑party raters judge us on.

• Own the architecture and technical direction for charger software and firmware across the EVSE portfolio, including functional safety, software FMEA, APIs, and state‑machine design.
• Define and maintain the charging‑software roadmap and align it with the vendor’s roadmap; lead gap analysis to sequence features, quality improvements, and platform changes against IONNA’s KPI targets.
• Ensure the charger software is fully interoperable across the broader IONNA ecosystem, embedding the V2G communications and OCPP stack to integrate seamlessly with IONNA's CPMS, payment systems, and Plug & Charge, keeping the stack scalable, maintainable, and reliable as the portfolio expands.
• Lead the full charger software development lifecycle: requirements, design reviews, release planning, acceptance criteria, quality gates, and release notes and documentation.
• Drive predictable, on‑time software deliveries from the vendor; hold release governance and improve delivery cadence and quality.
• Serve as the primary technical owner of the charger software relationship, partnering with the Charging Hardware Lead on combined HW/SW releases.
• Maintain and manage a comprehensive set of charging‑software requirements and acceptance criteria.

• Own charger software/firmware quality outcomes, driving regressions and escaped defects toward zero and protecting uptime and first‑attempt success.
• Partner with the Testing & Technology Evaluation team to gate releases, validate firmware, and ensure testability is designed in from the start.
• Lead root‑cause analysis on software‑driven field issues and support Tier‑3 obligations to resolution.
• Make major contributions to go/no‑go release decisions and shape pilot strategy; manage, measure, and continuously improve software‑related KPIs for the charging systems.

• Work closely with Hardware, Testing, Product, Program Management, and Operations to align charger software with the broader roadmap and deployment plans.
• Translate technical software findings into clear, actionable insights for engineering, product, and executive stakeholders.
• Stay current with the EV charging landscape and evolving standards, driving vehicle interoperability and proactively adapting the software roadmap and architecture.

• A minimum of 8 years in software or embedded‑systems engineering, including technical or team leadership.
• Proven experience owning the software development lifecycle (SDLC) with a hardware or firmware vendor: requirements, releases, and quality gates.
• Demonstrated ability to lead software/firmware architecture for connected hardware (chargers, embedded…