Firmware Engineering Manager

Position Summary

As Firmware Engineering Manager, you will lead the firmware engineering team while remaining a hands-on technical contributor. A large part of your time will be spent doing billable engineering work: designing, debugging, and delivering embedded and wireless systems for clients across a variety of customer markets. You will own day-to-day technical execution, guide engineers through complex challenges, and mentor and grow the firmware engineering team.

This is a permanent opportunity with a competitive base salary and great benefit package.

Key Responsibilities

Technical & Project Execution (Primary)

• Perform detailed firmware design and development work on client projects as a billable contributor.
• Estimate project tasks and timelines to inform statements of work.
• Interface with prospective and existing clients to understand and manage technical expectations.
• Ensure firmware solutions are well-architected, practical, and aligned with project objectives.
• Lead and enforce design reviews and contributions from engineering team to ensure technical quality, maintain standards, and ensure adherence to customer/product requirements.
• Provide critical technical oversight and guide engineers through technical challenges.
• Drive root cause analysis and document lessons learned to improve future execution.
• Lead and support recovery plans when problems arise in projects and tasks (budget, schedule, etc.).

Team & People Leadership

• Manage a team of 5–10 firmware engineers, including workload oversight, daily technical direction, and personnel administration.
• Hold regular one-on-ones; provide direct, constructive feedback on performance and professional development.
• Identify and develop technical leads within the team; empower them to support daily project operations.
• Mentor engineers on processes, design standards, and engineering best practices.
• Inspire and motivate the team by aligning business and individual goals.
• Foster a collaborative, communicative team culture; recognize and celebrate contributions from all team members regardless of seniority or background.
• Exemplify and reinforce the company values.

Strategy & Operations

• Establish and maintain quality standards.
• Drive continuous improvement through process definition and disciplined execution.
• Collaborate with the Director of Engineering to allocate resources and staff projects effectively, ensuring optimal utilization and setting future work up for success.
• Identify and manage third-party vendor relationships.
• Provide DevOps support for team tooling, CI/CD infrastructure, and developer productivity as needed.
• Establish and manage non-project firmware budget (tools, training, etc.).
• Review and support the hiring process.
• Collaborate with cross-functional peers to establish best practices and business-wide efficiencies.
• Lead cross-discipline brainstorming sessions.
• Maintain a smooth and well-defined onboarding experience for new staff.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of firmware industry experience, preferably in embedded design and/or wireless products.
• Minimum 2 years managing people; 3+ years preferred.
• Mastery of C and/or C++.
• Strong understanding of firmware and embedded system architecture and design.
• Demonstrated track record of delivering firmware projects end-to-end.
• Proficiency with embedded debugging tools: multimeters, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers.
• Ability to read schematics and understand the impacts of logic gates, transistors, voltage dividers, level shifters, and other common components.
• Ability to read hardware datasheets, user manuals, and implement firmware drivers.
• Comfortable working across multiple concurrent projects in a fast-paced consultancy environment.
• Strong communication skills necessary to interact with project managers and clients.
• Must reside in or be willing to relocate to the Raleigh-Durham metro area (hybrid schedule). No remote arrangements available.
• No subcontracting available.
• Must be a U.S. citizen.
• Ability to travel up to 5% annually (limited and project-dependent).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing firmware teams in a consulting or services environment.
• Hands-on experience with Zephyr RTOS, Yocto/embedded Linux, or comparable platforms.
• Familiarity with low-power firmware design for battery-powered IoT devices (sleep modes, power gating, current profiling).
• Familiarity with DevOps tooling, CI/CD pipelines, and engineering productivity tooling.
• Experience applying cybersecurity practices to embedded/IoT devices (secure boot, signed updates, SBOM, vulnerability response).
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code.
• Exposure to regulated-industry development (e.g., medical IEC 62304, industrial standards).

Core Competencies

• Deep technical credibility; comfortable diving into details, not just reviewing summaries.
• Able to remain hands-on while running a team and to serve as the senior technical voice in customer and internal reviews.
• Strong leadership and people-development skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Calm under pressure; effective at conflict resolution.
• Process-oriented mindset with a bias toward continuous improvement.
• Passion for customer satisfaction, technical excellence, and team success.
• Ability to effectively manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrates perseverance, making progress despite obstacles and setbacks.
• Demonstrates creativity in problem-solving and brainstorming environments.
• Thinks like an entrepreneur by considering business-wide impacts of decisions.
• Organized and analytical thinker; proactively identifies and mitigates risks.
• Passionate about results (not just checking boxes), and about customer satisfaction and technical quality.
• Can make progress with minimal guidance in uncertain situations with conflicting priorities.
• Recognizes the need for change and leads it effectively.
• Persuasive communicator who can leverage team strengths and encourage effective collaboration.
• Works independently with minimal technical guidance on execution.

Education

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field. Master’s degree preferred.

Pay: $145,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Work Location: In person