Lead Embedded Software Engineer

Embedded Software Engineer Lead, technical leadership of a small team 7-10+ years

Other levels: Embedded Software Engineer Senior Embedded Software Engineer Principal Embedded Software Engineer Staff Embedded Software Engineer Junior Embedded Software Engineer

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The job description

Tech stack. C/C++, ARM Cortex-M, RTOS, team leadership, sprint planning, code review, hardware bring-up, CI/CD for firmware

About the role

You will join a robotics startup building autonomous mobile robots for warehouse logistics. You will lead a small firmware team that owns everything from motor control to sensor fusion interfaces on the robot's embedded compute. This role matters because the firmware team is on the critical path for every robot milestone: navigation reliability, safety certification, and fleet uptime all run through your team's code, and the company needs a lead who can both architect and deliver.

What you will achieve

Lead a team of 4-6 firmware engineers shipping the control stack for the next-generation robot, hitting fleet-ready milestones across three release trains with no slipped safety deliverables
Drive motor control loop performance to 10 kHz with verified torque ripple under 2%, validated on dynamometer and confirmed across 500 hours of in-warehouse testing
Reduce safety-critical defect escape rate by establishing a review and test gate process that catches 95% of issues before hardware integration, measured over two release cycles
Build the team's CI/CD pipeline for firmware, cutting build-to-flash validation time from 2 hours to 20 minutes and enabling same-day turnaround on critical fixes
Own the firmware roadmap in partnership with product and systems teams, translating autonomy requirements into concrete embedded deliverables with dependency risks called out a quarter ahead

What you will bring

Must-haves

7-10+ years in embedded software with at least 2 years leading or mentoring a team of engineers through full delivery cycles
Strong C/C++ and RTOS fundamentals, with real-time control or motion experience on hardware that physically moves
Demonstrated ability to plan and deliver: breaking roadmaps into sprints, managing technical debt against feature pressure, and saying no with data
Experience with hardware bring-up of complex boards involving multiple MCUs, FPGAs, or heterogeneous SoCs
Fluency in the sensor interfaces common to robotics, including encoders, IMU, lidar/UART bridges, and CAN
A coaching mindset: growing engineers through feedback, pairing, and progressively harder ownership, not just task assignment
Calm under integration pressure: triaging multi-disciplinary failures across mechanical, electrical, and software systematically instead of by panic

Nice-to-haves

Experience with functional safety processes, even lightweight pre-certification rigor applied pragmatically
Familiarity with ROS 2 at the embedded boundary, including micro-ROS or custom bridges to the autonomy stack
Background in motor control theory such as FOC and PID tuning performed on real hardware, not just simulation