Metro Detroit, Michigan

James
Kovacs

Software Engineering Leader — engineering connected vehicle software at American automotive scale.

Building great software and great teams for the auto industry, from the heart of Motor City.

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Born & Built in the Mitten
About

Engineering leadership, forged in the Motor City

I'm a Metro Detroit native and software engineering leader with 15+ years of experience spanning public safety systems and connected vehicle software. I got my start modernizing mission-critical software for police, fire, and corrections agencies before moving into the automotive world. Over the last decade-plus, I've built everything from early web platforms to modern Android platforms, delivering enterprise-scale infotainment apps for Ford and General Motors that are now installed in over 13 million vehicles across North America.

I've led every stage of the software lifecycle: architecture, hands-on engineering, product strategy, and people leadership. Whether coaching engineers, shipping first-of-its-kind manufacturing tools, or driving cross-functional roadmaps with product, UX, and cybersecurity teams, I care about building durable systems and durable teams.

15+
Years Building Software
6+
Years Leading Engineering Teams
13M+
Vehicle Installs Reached
6
Vehicle Brands Reached
Career Path

Experience

June 2025 - Current

Software Engineering Supervisor

Ford Motor Company · Redford, MI

  • Scope & Strategic Impact: Built and managed an Agile engineering team to develop a first-of-its-kind Android infotainment application for end-of-line manufacturing operations, targeting 5 vehicle lines (Ford Explorer, Expedition, Lincoln Aviator, Navigator, and Nautilus).
  • Team Building & Project Rescue: Resurrected an orphaned initiative by identifying and mobilizing internal talent, forming the department's first centralized software development team from scratch.
  • Process Transformation & Governance: Architected a disciplined Agile SDLC from the ground up, defining cross-functional accountabilities through a comprehensive RASIC matrix; established the department's first centralized knowledge repository (Confluence) with standardized templates to trace business requirements and technical design.
  • Execution & Launch Readiness: Bridged the gap between leadership vision and team execution by establishing rigorous standards for critical product/technical documentation and overseeing the development of end-user training modules to ensure flawless launch readiness.
  • Quality & Flawless Delivery: Spearheaded the design and implementation of a formal QA validation practice, yielding zero P0/P1 defects and ensuring a flawless, on-time software delivery.
  • Mentorship & Cultural Impact: Coached junior team members to broaden their technical skills and expand into software architecture, cultivating a highly engaged culture that drove significant increases in team satisfaction and leadership approval ratings.

January 2021 - September 2024

Software Engineering Manager

General Motors · Warren, MI

  • Team & Talent Management: Headed a high-performing organization of 12 direct reports (Android Developers and QA Engineers across direct and contract talent) operating within a SAFe Agile framework.
  • Scale & Product Reach: Delivered Android applications for GM's Android Automotive OS (AAOS) infotainment systems, scaling to over 13 million active installations across North America.
  • Strategic Feature Lifecycle Management: Acted as the engineering lead within the Triad partnership (Product, Design, Technical Strategy) to drive product requirements, prioritize roadmaps, and ensure cross-functional alignment before implementation.
  • Continuous Improvement & OTA Strategy: Pioneered over-the-air (OTA) strategy by developing the "App Shop" and core background services, enabling app syncing for 10M+ vehicles, unlocking continuous post-purchase value, and generating new 3rd-party revenue streams.
  • Cost Optimization: Engineered a strategic software delivery initiative that reduced vehicle manufacturing overhead by $9 per vehicle, generating millions of dollars in recurring annual savings for GM.
  • Partner & Ecosystem Engineering: Led Partner & Ecosystem Engineering initiatives by designing enterprise REST API integrations with partners like AllState for embedded roadside assistance, ensuring strict adherence to cybersecurity certificate standards and offboard data privacy policies.
  • Release Governance & Quality Strategy: Governed software release quality by enforcing rigorous go/no-go thresholds based on metrics tracked in Xray, and securing sign-offs from cross-functional quality, safety, legal, privacy, and open-source stakeholders.

June 2015 - September 2024

Software Architect / Senior Software Engineer

General Motors · Warren, MI

  • Platform Architecture: Served as Dev Lead and Principal Architect for GM's Next Generation Infotainment (NGI) platform, building responsive web applications with AngularJS, React, and Node.js integrated with proprietary and 3rd-party RESTful APIs.
  • Ecosystem Launch: Successfully architected and deployed GM's inaugural connected infotainment app portfolio to millions of vehicles worldwide, featuring App Shop, Marketplace, Audiobooks, The Weather Channel, Glympse, Single Sign-On (SSO), and platform core services.
  • Technical Documentation & Governance: Authored comprehensive technical documentation, including sequence diagrams, REST/API specifications, OAuth authentication protocols, and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA).
  • Over-the-Air (OTA) Delivery: Designed and executed OTA updating strategies to continuously expand vehicle feature capabilities, patch pre-production/production issues, and deploy new applications post-vehicle purchase.
  • Quality & Agile Precision: Partnered directly with Product Owners to author clear user stories and Acceptance Criteria utilizing the Gherkin BDD (Behavior-Driven Development) framework.

May 2011 - June 2015

Software Engineer

Tyler Technologies · Troy, MI

  • Modernization & Full-Stack Development: Led development on a modern web-based enterprise Public Safety Software suite using JavaScript (AngularJS), C#/.NET, Microsoft SQL Server, and Elasticsearch, while maintaining and supporting legacy VB.NET/VB6 platforms.
  • Database Engineering & Mobile Solutions: Developed and debugged performance-critical SQL Server stored procedures and built a dedicated Windows Mobile application utilizing the .NET Compact Framework to track officer rounds in corrections facilities.
  • Client Support & Field Operations: Partnered directly with enterprise customers to triage critical software issues, conducting on-site visits to support complex software upgrades, deployments, and testing.

May 2010 - August 2010

Software Engineer (Intern)

Parametric Technology Corporation · Ann Arbor, MI

  • Contributed to the development of Arbortext Editor, PTC's enterprise XML structured authoring tool.
  • Implemented new front-end features, coding primarily in C++.
Toolbox

Skills & Expertise

Leadership & Strategy(9)

Team Leadership & Mentorship
Employee Coaching
Performance Management
Project & Product Management
Cross-Functional Alignment (Triad Partnership)
Partner & Ecosystem Engineering
OKR Governance
Strategic Roadmap Planning
PI Planning

Automotive & Connected Vehicle(8)

In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI)
Over-The-Air (OTA) Updates
Android Automotive OS / Google Built-In
Connected Vehicle Platforms
Telematics
Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) & Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) Validation
Emulators & Test Benches
ArcGIS / Telenav / Here Maps / Leaflet

Systems & API Architecture(10)

High-Level Design (HLD)
System & API Design
REST
GraphQL
OpenAPI / Swagger
OAuth
Microservices
BFF
Cloud Backend Strategy
Technical Documentation

Engineering Practices & Quality(10)

Release Governance
Defect Triage Strategy
Quality Assurance (QA)
Test Suite Management (Xray)
Mocha / Jasmine
SpecFlow
Agile / SAFe / Scrum
Backlog Grooming & Sprint Planning
DFSS Black Belt
FMEA

DevOps & Developer Tooling(11)

CI/CD Pipelines (Jenkins)
Jira
Confluence
GitHub
Bitbucket
SVN
TFS
Visual Studio
Xcode
VS Code
Grunt / Gulp

Languages & Platforms(13)

Android / Java
C#/.NET
C++
VB.NET
JavaScript / Node.js
React
AngularJS
RDBMS / SQL Server
HTML/CSS
XSLT / XSD
AEM
PHP
VB6
Foundation

Education

University of Michigan

Computer Science, BSE

Ann Arbor, MI · May 2011