Sr. Director – Software, Controls & Vehicle Systems

Description

Better Trucks. Better World. 

Headquartered in Wixom, MI with locations in California, Ohio and Indiana, Workhorse is raising the standard for what a medium-duty truck should be — delivering vehicles, infrastructure, and support designed to work for you.   

About the Role  

The Senior Director of Software, Controls & Vehicle Systems will lead the strategy, organization, architecture, development, integration, and validation of vehicle software and controls across Workhorse's current and future commercial vehicle platforms.

Workhorse was formed through the merger of Workhorse Group and Motiv Electric Trucks. This leader will have an immediate organizational mandate to integrate the legacy Workhorse and Motiv Software & Controls teams into a single, high-performing organization with common processes, tools, architectures, technical standards, and accountability. The Senior Director will establish a scalable organizational structure that preserves the technical strengths and product knowledge of both legacy teams while creating a unified approach to future vehicle development.

The role will also lead the transformation of Workhorse's software and controls capabilities to support next-generation electric and autonomous commercial vehicles. This includes establishing an AUTOSAR-based development strategy, strengthening functional safety and automotive cybersecurity capabilities, advancing model-based development and automated validation, and defining the vehicle-control architecture and interfaces necessary to support advanced ADAS and autonomous-driving systems.

This position requires a leader who combines deep technical credibility with strong organizational leadership. The successful candidate must be capable of challenging technical decisions while creating an environment where engineers and cross-functional teams can openly debate alternatives, make decisions, and collectively own vehicle-level outcomes.

What You Will Do  

Organizational Leadership & Team Integration

• Integrate the legacy Workhorse and Motiv Software & Controls organizations into one cohesive engineering team with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, technical ownership, and decision authority.
• Develop and implement the future organizational structure for Software & Controls Engineering, including leadership roles, technical disciplines, staffing requirements, and capability-development plans.
• Establish a culture of collaboration, technical rigor, accountability, constructive challenge, and vehicle-level ownership that operates around company and vehicle objectives rather than legacy organizational or functional boundaries
• Develop managers and technical leaders who can make decisions and lead teams independently while maintaining appropriate architectural and technical governance.
• Recruit and develop talent in embedded software, controls, AUTOSAR, cybersecurity, functional safety, diagnostics, telematics/cloud connectivity, vehicle integration, and automated validation.
• Create effective working relationships across Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Battery Systems, Test & Validation, Manufacturing, Field Service, Procurement, Program Management, and external technology partners.

Software & Controls Strategy and Architecture

• Own the software and controls strategy for current and future Workhorse vehicle platforms.
• Define a scalable vehicle software and controls architecture supporting multiple commercial vehicle platforms and configurations.
• Establish clear ownership and governance for embedded software, vehicle controls, body controls, propulsion controls, diagnostics, communications, telematics, cloud interfaces, OTA capabilities, and vehicle-level supervisory controls.
• Lead the transition toward an AUTOSAR-compliant software architecture and development environment, including appropriate application of Classic and Adaptive AUTOSAR.
• Define standardized software interfaces and abstraction layers that reduce dependency on specific hardware suppliers and improve reuse across vehicle platforms.
• Establish architectural standards for CAN/CAN-FD, Ethernet and other vehicle networks, diagnostics, communication protocols, and vehicle-level interfaces.
• Drive software reuse, modularity, configurability, and commonality across vehicle programs to reduce development time, cost, and complexity.

Autonomous Vehicle & Advanced Controls Development

• Lead Software & Controls activities supporting development of autonomous commercial vehicle platforms.
• Define the vehicle-control architecture required to safely interface with ADAS and Level 4 autonomous-driving systems.
• Establish standardized, secure vehicle-control interfaces/APIs for steering, braking, propulsion, gear selection, body controls, vehicle state, diagnostics, and other systems required by autonomy partners.
• Lead development and integration of drive-by-wire and other safety-critical vehicle-control capabilities required for autonomous operation.
• Establish clear interface ownership between Workhorse vehicle controls and third-party autonomy technology providers.
• Ensure vehicle architecture supports appropriate redundancy, fault detection, degraded operating modes, safe-state behavior, diagnostics, and system health monitoring.
• Work closely with autonomy development partners, suppliers, customers, and internal engineering teams to translate autonomous-driving requirements into production-capable vehicle systems.

Functional Safety & Cybersecurity

• Establish and lead the company's automotive functional safety strategy and engineering processes consistent with ISO 26262.
• Establish automotive cybersecurity engineering processes aligned with ISO/SAE 21434 and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Integrate functional safety and cybersecurity activities into the complete product-development lifecycle, from concept and requirements through architecture, implementation, validation, production, and field support.
• Establish processes for hazard analysis and risk assessment, functional and technical safety concepts, FMEA/FMEDA, safety requirements, safety cases, and verification and validation.
• Establish cybersecurity risk assessment, threat analysis, secure communications, authentication, secure boot, software update, key management, vulnerability management, and incident-response strategies.
• Ensure safety and cybersecurity requirements are incorporated into supplier requirements and technical agreements.

Software Development Process & Quality

• Establish a common Software Development Lifecycle across the combined organization, including requirements management, architecture, design reviews, coding standards, configuration management, integration, verification, validation, and release.
• Improve requirements traceability from vehicle-level requirements through system, software, and validation requirements.
• Establish disciplined software release and configuration-management processes across all vehicle platforms.
• Expand model-based software and controls development where appropriate.
• Advance CI/CD practices, automated builds, automated testing, static analysis, code quality, and software metrics.
• Expand SIL, MIL and HIL/HWIL capabilities and automated regression testing to improve test coverage and release confidence.
• Partner with Test & Validation to establish integrated software and vehicle validation strategies and objective release criteria.
• Establish metrics for software quality, requirements coverage, test coverage, defect escape, release performance, technical debt, and field reliability.

Current Product & Customer Support

• Maintain strong engineering ownership of software and controls for existing Workhorse and legacy Motiv products while transforming the organization for future platforms.
• Ensure customer, field, and manufacturing concerns receive appropriate priority and disciplined root-cause analysis.
• Establish a vehicle-level problem-solving culture in which issues are investigated collaboratively before functional ownership is determined.
• Improve closed-loop learning from field issues so that lessons learned are incorporated into requirements, architectures, design standards, and validation processes for future products.
• Manage component obsolescence, supplier changes, software updates, and continuous product improvement for production vehicle platforms.

Supplier & Technology Partner Leadership

• Provide technical leadership in the selection and management of software, controls, ECU, connectivity, cybersecurity, ADAS, and autonomy technology suppliers.
• Establish software and controls requirements, interface-control documents, development expectations, validation requirements, and technical acceptance criteria for suppliers.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions and determine which software and controls capabilities represent strategic Workhorse intellectual property.
• Manage technical relationships with external development partners while maintaining Workhorse ownership of vehicle architecture, integration, safety, and overall vehicle performance.

Requirements

Required Qualifications & Skill 

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or related technical discipline; advanced degree preferred. 
• 15+ years of progressively responsible automotive, commercial vehicle, or similar safety-critical embedded systems experience. 
• Significant leadership experience managing multidisciplinary software and controls engineering organizations. 
• Demonstrated success integrating, restructuring, or significantly scaling engineering teams. 
• Deep experience with embedded automotive software and vehicle-control systems. 
• Strong experience with AUTOSAR architecture and implementation, including Classic AUTOSAR; Adaptive AUTOSAR experience strongly preferred. 
• Demonstrated experience with automotive functional safety and ISO 26262. 
• Strong automotive cybersecurity experience, including ISO/SAE 21434 principles and secure vehicle architectures. 
• Experience developing or integrating safety-critical vehicle-control systems such as propulsion, braking, steering, or drive-by-wire. 
• Experience with model-based development, requirements management, configuration management, SIL/MIL/HIL testing, automated testing, and software release processes. 
• Strong understanding of automotive communications and diagnostics including CAN, CAN-FD, Ethernet, UDS, and related protocols. 
• Demonstrated ability to lead effectively across organizational and functional boundaries. 

Highly Desired 

• Experience developing vehicle platforms for Level 2+ through Level 4 autonomous-driving applications. 
• Experience defining vehicle-control interfaces for third-party autonomous-driving systems. 
• Experience with redundant/fail-operational controls architectures and safety-critical drive-by-wire systems. 
• Experience with commercial vehicles, medium/heavy-duty trucks, or other high-voltage electric vehicles. 
• Experience with EV propulsion, battery management, charging, thermal controls, and high-voltage systems. 
• Experience with telematics, IoT, cloud connectivity, OTA software updates, and vehicle data architectures. 
• Experience managing globally distributed engineering organizations and international suppliers. 
• Experience leading engineering organizations through mergers, acquisitions, or major organizational transformations.  

Why Workhorse 

Engineering and Manufacturing for the Work Ahead 

Workhorse designs, engineers, tests, validates and manufactures physical products in America’s Heartland. Our work spans battery-electric commercial vehicles and the development of Mobile AI Infrastructure. 

See Your Work Take Shape 

Engineering and manufacturing come together at Workhorse. Employees can see their contributions progress from problem-solving and product development to production and real-world use. 

Collaborative, Accountable Teams 

Our teams work across disciplines to solve practical challenges. We value respect, open communication and accountability, and employees are trusted to contribute ideas and take ownership of their work. 

Built on Experience. Focused on What’s Ahead. 

Workhorse brings established commercial-vehicle experience to new products and applications, creating opportunities to strengthen what we do today while helping develop what comes next. 

A Workplace with Personality 

We take our work seriously while making room for connection, camaraderie and fun. At select locations, that includes a dog-friendly workplace in accordance with site guidelines. 

Workhorse Group Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability.