Competition Grows In Auto Industry To Lure Laid Off Tech Workers

At leading auto software supplier Sonatus, CEO Jeff Chou is anxious to attract the best talent to his Silicon Valley company. The Sonatus software platform is already in production in Hyundai, Kia and Genesis vehicles.

But Chou observes, there's a big difference between working at a so-called legacy automaker and startups like Sonatus.

"What I would caution is, yes, a lot of automotive is hiring as many software engineers as possible,” said Chou in an interview. "The challenge though, is you have an industry that's transforming from a mechanical hardware-centric industry into more of a software, you know, value proposition and that the challenge that these companies who are making this transition is do they have the right culture setup for a software engineer to prosper?”

One of the several "culture clashes,” as Chou puts it, is an automaker transforming itself from mainly a mechanical and hardware-focused company to one putting increased importance and resources into software development as vehicles become more technically complex.

"In hardware, almost everything has to be pre-planned,” explained Chou. "In software you adapt as you grow and you can update and change and add new features as you go along in the design process or even post production, and that's a big culture clash.”

The trick is, Chou says, as a supplier, to both respect your customer's culture, while maintaining the integrity of yours so you can work together, calling it a "marriage” based on mutual trust.

But it's a fine line for a startup not only working with global automakers, but at times, competing for talent with them, plus the very companies that just staged layoffs when they eventually start hiring again.

"So really the candidate that I'm looking for is is not just the right skill set is the candidate that has the mentality, I want to join a startup. I want to build a company from the ground up,” said Chou. "You know, compensation isn't the only thing they look at, and that's the mindset of the person I'm looking for.”

Chou points out that even though the auto industry is increasingly moving towards electric and electrified vehicles it doesn't require any special expertise for software engineers.

Indeed, the demand for such skills remains high as automakers continue to develop and build vehicles powered by internal combustion engines because "if you design a combustion engine, vehicle from scratch, like you do an electrical one, you can incorporate just as much software. You know, in many ways, you could argue maybe even more because the combustion engine vehicle is more complicated. Therefore, it needs more software.”

He points out, however, not all software engineers are alike, with some specializing in the type of cloud-based software Sonatus specializes in, while others are focused on what the industry classifies as embedded software.

It's engineers adept in the latter, Chou says, that are still needed, but more difficult to find, observing,"unfortunately, that has become I wouldn't say, a total lost art. But it's been diminishing over the years because embedded software engineers tend to be closer to the hardware and hardware has been, let's say, reduced in its attractiveness, to new college grads and to a new generation of software.”

Sonatus Director of Marketing and Communications, Michael Cory told us the company is attempting to attract technical talent by "putting our foot on the gas and not taking it off in terms of telling the story of the company,” having recently launched a social media campaign.

Chou adds his company, as a startup, may not be able to offer the big bucks, but rather career growth.

For sure, with the recent spate of layoffs from the big tech companies the flow of applications has been constant with Sonatus receiving two to three times the normal number of applications, ratcheting up the competition for the best jobs, according to Chou.

But, Chou advises, despite the crush of competition in the auto industry for tech jobs, "if you're a great candidate, you will have opportunities.”