A PIONEERING York firm which develops automotive software has launched a recruitment drive for more than 100 highly-skilled tech experts.

ETAS, the leading global supplier of vehicle operating systems, needs more software specialists to join its Centre of Excellence for Embedded Software Development in Fulford.

The centre in Hospital Fields Road is the centrepiece of a £1.6m expansion of the Bosch subsidiary’s long-established presence in York where the team writes software to support future generations of advanced autonomous and highly automated driving.

More than one billion copies of the ETAS York operating system have been deployed in vehicles around the world to date - premium cars will soon contain 100 million lines of software code in each vehicle.

The York site has doubled in size in recent years and ETAS' strengths in key technologies - electronics and software - are increasingly in demand as new systems need to be brought to market faster.

With vehicles becoming more energy efficient and developments in autonomous driving, digitalization, connectivity and cyber security, ETAS is growing its team to develop automotive software more quickly and efficiently.

Paul Exley, a director of engineering, said: "The car is one of the most complex software systems in the world. In a premium car there's about 100m lines of software code."

Software has to be written in a particular way to withstand being in such a robust environment, and within safety and security constraints, he said. "We provide the software and systems to enable this."

York Press: ETAS in Hospital Fields Road, Fulford, York Picture: Nadia Jefferson-Brown

Simon Thornton, group manager, said the automotive world was changing dramatically, and a lot of investment was coming to York, driven by an automotive operations system project with Bosch in Germany.

He said York was playing a key role because of its expertise in software safety and reliability, as well as its established links with customers.

"There are billions of copies of our embedded software on the road. No run-time faults have been reported."

Simon said York's appeal as a place to live was a big draw when recruiting while its strong links with the universities in York and Leeds, with 22 students on placement, would also help.

Nigel Tracey, vice president of RTA Solutions at ETAS, said: "We are looking for just over 100 people. The vast majority will be graduates with a range of experience."

He said it was a competitive market, and ETAS was having to compete with firms across the country for strong candidates due to the post-pandemic trend of remote working.

"That has created some upward pressure. We have to be competitive to get good software engineers."

But he was confident. "Last year we hired 45 people - that was a 35 per cent increase in headcount."

Nigel said the University of York's computer science department had a strong focus on the areas ETAS was interested in - ETAS was founded as a spin out from the University of York and bought out by Bosch.

The team says key hooks for candidates to consider include ETAS' position in markets, such as automotive driving, which many want to work in.

The York firm also embraces hybrid working, having seen a 15 per cent rise in productivity during the pandemic with people working from home. Meanwhile, many young people also want to work for Bosch because of it sustainable credentials.

Nigel said teams would manage how they wanted to work, but York remained a big pull for new recruits as a place in which to live and work.

With ETAS, applicants have the opportunity to be part of a 150-strong team in York enabling them to see and measure the impact of their work, he added.

"They will be doing software that has meaning, impact, purpose. There's something exciting about getting in a car and knowing it is running on software you write."

Successful candidates will also be part of the multi-national, Bosch, which has 400,000 employees.