About NIO
NIO is a pioneer and a leading company in the premium smart electric vehicle market. Founded in November 2014, NIO’s mission is to shape a joyful lifestyle. NIO aims to build a community starting with smart electric vehicles to share joy and grow together with users.
NIO is a global smart electric vehicle company founded in November 2014. Dedicated to shaping a sustainable and brighter future together by providing high-performance smart electric vehicles and exceptional user experiences, NIO is the first car company listed on the NYSE, HKEX and SGX. NIO currently has three major brands under its umbrella: NIO, ONVO and firefly.
Ten years into establishment, NIO is now one of the leading companies in the global premium smart electric vehicle market, committed to fostering its own research and development capabilities for core technologies. As of the end of June 2025, the company had filed for and obtained over 9,900 patents. Additionally, NIO has developed NIO Full Stack, a collection of 12 technology domains.
Currently, NIO has R&D centers and manufacturing facilities in over 10 locations, including Shanghai, Hefei, Beijing, Nanjing, San Jose, Munich, Oxford, Budapest, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. Additionally, it has built a sales and service network across 10 countries and regions, including China, Europe, the Middle East and the Greater Caucasus, serving users in over 350 cities worldwide.
NIO currently offers nine premium smart electric vehicle models under the NIO brand, two smart electric vehicle under the ONVO brand and one small, smart, high-end electric vehicle under firefly brand.
About the Position
This role is ideal for an experienced kernel or hypervisor engineer who wants to work hands-on with the foundations of NIO’s in-vehicle compute platform. You will join the core system software team behind SkyOS-H, NIO’s in-house hypervisor, and other SkyOS variants — contributing from architecture design to production deployment in next-generation intelligent vehicles.
• Hypervisor & Kernel Performance at Scale
You’ll work on low-level system software designed for real-time, high-efficiency, and safety-critical automotive environments. This includes optimizing latency and throughput, refining vIRQ handling, improving cache and memory subsystem efficiency (SMMU, coherency, and paging), and leveraging Arm V8 virtualization extensions (VHE). You will contribute to hypervisor scheduling, partition isolation, and secure domain management to achieve automotive-grade determinism and performance on modern SoCs.
• End-to-End Impact & Intelligent Vehicle Systems
From early architecture exploration to kernel integration, driver development, validation, and production rollout — your work will directly power live vehicle systems. You’ll enable mission-critical domains such as AD/ADAS compute, sensor fusion, and secure boot/trusted execution (TrustZone, OP-TEE).
In collaboration with AI and cloud teams, you’ll also support emerging LLM-based intelligent copilots and in-vehicle assistants, where hypervisor-level performance and scheduling directly enhance on-vehicle AI responsiveness. This role offers a rare opportunity to build real products that blend operating systems, virtualization, and intelligence at the edge — all within a fast-moving automotive environment.
Roles and Responsibilities:
• Develop and execute a microkernel-based operating system and hypervisor tailored for diverse on-vehicle applications in autonomous driving vehicles.
• Analyze and enhance operating system functionalities for real-time performance, high efficiency, security, and functional safety.
• Collaborate with the team to discuss and refine designs and implementations.
• Lead through demonstration, serving as both a mentor and a mentee to foster team growth and knowledge sharing.
Must-have Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• 1+ years of experience in embedded systems or low-level system software development.
• Strong coding skills in C, ARM assembly, and in-line assembly.
• Deep understanding of Arm V8 architecture: GIC, SMMU, cache hierarchy, and Arm Virtualization Host Extensions (VHE).
• Proficiency in Git, C/C++, Python, and object-oriented programming.
• Experience with Linux kernel development or driver subsystems.
• Knowledge of embedded system security: Arm TrustZone, OP-TEE, Secure Boot.
• Ability to thrive and contribute effectively within a global, cross-functional engineering team.
Compensation:
The US base salary range for this full-time position is $163,500.00 - $212,400.00.
• Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.
• Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only. It does not include discretionary bonus, equity, or benefits.
Benefits:
Along with competitive pay, as a full-time NIO employee, you are eligible for the following benefits on the first day you join NIO:
• CIGNA EPO, HSA, and Kaiser HMO medical plans with $0 for Employee Only Coverage.
• Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plan. Both provide options with a $0 paycheck contribution covering you and your eligible dependents.
• Company Paid HSA (Health Savings Account) Contribution when enrolled in the High Deductible CIGNA medical plan
• Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) with Brokerage Link option
• Company paid Basic Life, AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Employee Assistance Program
• Sick and Vacation time
• 13 Paid Holidays a year
• Paid Parental Leave for first 8 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)
• Paid Disability Leave for first 6 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)
• Voluntary benefits including: Voluntary Life and AD&D options for you, your spouse/domestic partner and dependent child(ren), pet insurance
• Commuter benefits
• Mobile Cell Phone Credit
• Healthjoy mobile benefit app supporting you and your dependents with benefit questions on the go & support with benefit billing questions
• Free lunch and snacks
• Onsite gym
• Employee discounts and perks program
