By Stephen Harber, content strategist, talent marketing
Meet Jeff Bush, executive director of digital vehicle experience at General Motors. He’s made the rounds in Silicon Valley, building his career in the startup world and perfecting his engineering skills at companies like Apple, Google, and Roku.
Based in GM’s office in Mountain View, California, Jeff manages the teams responsible for in-vehicle user interface and application software across all GM vehicles. That includes digital instrument clusters, center screens, heads-up display, and passenger entertainment systems.
Jeff has a lot to say about his shift into the auto world, and the future of GM.
What was your road to GM like?
Working here brings my career full circle. I'm originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I worked on equipment used to build GM vehicles at a foundry after high school.
Eventually, I went back to school and majored in computer science. I moved to California in 1998, just in time to witness the peak (and bursting) of the dot-com bubble.
You were involved in some iconic hardware devices.
I worked at some interesting startups, like Danger, which made the T-Mobile Sidekick, one of the first internet-connected smartphones. In 2005, I moved to Apple, where I worked on a secret project that became the iPhone.
Later, I led the Android Automotive OS software engineering team at Google. When I found this opportunity at GM, everything came together.
How do you view GM’s commitment to electric vehicles?
I’m an EV nerd. I have a lot of respect for how Mary Barra laid out GM’s “three zeros” mission statement – zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion. She made it clear that we'll electrify most of our light-duty vehicles. And we’re executing that vision.
What’s your biggest achievement at GM so far?
We've improved the quality of our releases and shipped a lot of great vehicles over the last year. We're improving our code review processes. We're also being more disciplined about milestones and being judicious about what features we work on. We're planting a lot of seeds now that will grow in the future.
What’s your ideal user experience for GM vehicles?
I'd love to get to a point where, on a regular basis, a GM vehicle owner gets in their car, notices that there's an over-the-air update available, and is excited to install it and see what new features and improvements they'll get.
We’re getting closer. We’re working on the fundamentals, improving our automated testing.
How do we get there?
We want to own more of our software, so we're not as dependent on vendors, which adds a lot of integration complexity. We're working hard to modernize our software and hardware stack.
We have teams actively working on our next-gen electrical hardware architecture. That will simplify our systems. We’ll be able to update software and add features more easily and more frequently.
What’s your biggest challenge at GM?
GM’s product portfolio is inherently complex, just like our organization. I juggle many competing priorities and viewpoints to provide a clear direction for the team.
I keep a quote by the Roman philosopher Cicero in mind: “More is lost by indecision than wrong decision.”
I let go of trying to make the perfect choice all the time and focus on unblocking the team and trusting my peers to help us navigate ambiguity.
You play guitar in your spare time. Do you see parallels between building UIs and making music?
Making music and building software products are broad canvases with many possibilities. The creativity of software engineering lies in narrowing down the range of options into something tangible, in the same way that making music is narrowing down all of the possible notes and rhythms into a song.
Both are forms of communication: the result will be consumed by other people – either listeners, or your teammates who use your APIs or maintain the codebase. You need to think about your audience and how they’ll understand it.
How does GM’s culture compare to other places you’ve worked?
At GM, there’s a passionate dedication to the brand and company. People really sweat the details here.
How is GM shaping the future of mobility?
GM plays a large role in popularizing electric vehicles and enabling autonomous driving. To grow EV and eventually AV adoption requires building consumer confidence. That means creating products that are safe, reliable, and enjoyable to use.
And it’s not easy. Very few companies have the broad expertise, production capabilities, and market reach that GM does.
What’s your message to engineers who want to work for GM?
What really motivates engineers is solving hard problems. And GM has so many hard, interesting engineering problems to keep you stimulated.
If you’re looking to be challenged - in a good way - you’ll get that here at GM.
To explore engineering opportunities at GM, visit https://search-careers.gm.com
Check out these stories to learn more about technology and innovation at GM:
Meet Jeff Bush, executive director of digital vehicle experience at General Motors. He’s made the rounds in Silicon Valley, building his career in the startup world and perfecting his engineering skills at companies like Apple, Google, and Roku.
Based in GM’s office in Mountain View, California, Jeff manages the teams responsible for in-vehicle user interface and application software across all GM vehicles. That includes digital instrument clusters, center screens, heads-up display, and passenger entertainment systems.
Jeff has a lot to say about his shift into the auto world, and the future of GM.
What was your road to GM like?
Working here brings my career full circle. I'm originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I worked on equipment used to build GM vehicles at a foundry after high school.
Eventually, I went back to school and majored in computer science. I moved to California in 1998, just in time to witness the peak (and bursting) of the dot-com bubble.
You were involved in some iconic hardware devices.
I worked at some interesting startups, like Danger, which made the T-Mobile Sidekick, one of the first internet-connected smartphones. In 2005, I moved to Apple, where I worked on a secret project that became the iPhone.
Later, I led the Android Automotive OS software engineering team at Google. When I found this opportunity at GM, everything came together.
How do you view GM’s commitment to electric vehicles?
I’m an EV nerd. I have a lot of respect for how Mary Barra laid out GM’s “three zeros” mission statement – zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion. She made it clear that we'll electrify most of our light-duty vehicles. And we’re executing that vision.
What’s your biggest achievement at GM so far?
We've improved the quality of our releases and shipped a lot of great vehicles over the last year. We're improving our code review processes. We're also being more disciplined about milestones and being judicious about what features we work on. We're planting a lot of seeds now that will grow in the future.
What’s your ideal user experience for GM vehicles?
I'd love to get to a point where, on a regular basis, a GM vehicle owner gets in their car, notices that there's an over-the-air update available, and is excited to install it and see what new features and improvements they'll get.
We’re getting closer. We’re working on the fundamentals, improving our automated testing.
How do we get there?
We want to own more of our software, so we're not as dependent on vendors, which adds a lot of integration complexity. We're working hard to modernize our software and hardware stack.
We have teams actively working on our next-gen electrical hardware architecture. That will simplify our systems. We’ll be able to update software and add features more easily and more frequently.
What’s your biggest challenge at GM?
GM’s product portfolio is inherently complex, just like our organization. I juggle many competing priorities and viewpoints to provide a clear direction for the team.
I keep a quote by the Roman philosopher Cicero in mind: “More is lost by indecision than wrong decision.”
I let go of trying to make the perfect choice all the time and focus on unblocking the team and trusting my peers to help us navigate ambiguity.
You play guitar in your spare time. Do you see parallels between building UIs and making music?
Making music and building software products are broad canvases with many possibilities. The creativity of software engineering lies in narrowing down the range of options into something tangible, in the same way that making music is narrowing down all of the possible notes and rhythms into a song.
Both are forms of communication: the result will be consumed by other people – either listeners, or your teammates who use your APIs or maintain the codebase. You need to think about your audience and how they’ll understand it.
How does GM’s culture compare to other places you’ve worked?
At GM, there’s a passionate dedication to the brand and company. People really sweat the details here.
How is GM shaping the future of mobility?
GM plays a large role in popularizing electric vehicles and enabling autonomous driving. To grow EV and eventually AV adoption requires building consumer confidence. That means creating products that are safe, reliable, and enjoyable to use.
And it’s not easy. Very few companies have the broad expertise, production capabilities, and market reach that GM does.
What’s your message to engineers who want to work for GM?
What really motivates engineers is solving hard problems. And GM has so many hard, interesting engineering problems to keep you stimulated.
If you’re looking to be challenged - in a good way - you’ll get that here at GM.
To explore engineering opportunities at GM, visit https://search-careers.gm.com
Check out these stories to learn more about technology and innovation at GM: