Engineering Manager, Embedded Robotics Software

Summary

As an Engineering Manager, Embedded Robotics, you lead the team that builds, tests, and ships the software running on our mobile robotics platforms. You are responsible for the velocity, quality, and technical health of the embedded software team—and for growing the people inside it. You operate at the intersection of technical depth and team leadership: you understand the code and the systems well enough to make sound calls, and you create the conditions for your engineers to do their best work.

Duties

• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of embedded software engineers and test engineers building and verifying software for UAV, UGV, and USV platforms
• Own delivery of the embedded software roadmap—plan sprints, manage dependencies, remove blockers, and hold the team accountable to commitments
• Drive technical standards and practices across the team: code review rigor, test coverage expectations, branching and release strategies, CI/CD pipeline health
• Partner with systems engineering, hardware, and product leadership to translate product and mission requirements into concrete engineering plans and milestones
• Make build-vs-buy and architectural decisions alongside senior engineers, ensuring the team invests effort where it creates the most leverage
• Own the team's CI/CD and test infrastructure strategy—ensure SITL/HITL rigs, Jenkins pipelines, and multi-site fixtures remain reliable, fast, and fit for purpose as the product scales
• Manage engineering operations across distributed offices: coordinate hardware resources, test fixture availability, and lab access so that geography is not a bottleneck
• Recruit, interview, and hire embedded software and test engineers—build a team that can operate at the level the mission demands
• Run effective 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development conversations; identify and address underperformance early and directly
• Establish and track engineering metrics (cycle time, defect escape rate, CI pass rate, test coverage) that give the team and leadership honest signal on health and progress

Required Skills

• 3+ years of experience managing software engineers working on embedded or systems-level software, with direct-report teams of 5 or more
• Strong technical foundation in C++ on embedded linux—you have written and shipped production code in this domain and can engage credibly in design reviews and technical trade-offs
• Demonstrated experience owning delivery of a complex software product through planning, execution, and release
• Practical understanding of CI/CD pipelines, automated testing infrastructure, and the operational realities of SITL/HITL environments—you have either built these or directly managed the teams that did
• Experience managing geographically distributed teams or engineering infrastructure across multiple sites
• Track record of hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineers
• Clear, direct communication style—comfortable delivering hard messages up, down, and sideways

Nice to Have

• Prior experience in mobile robotics, aerospace, or defense embedded software organizations
• Hands-on familiarity with robotics middleware (ROS/ROS2, MAVLink, DDS)
• Experience scaling an engineering team through a period of rapid growth (e.g., seed to Series A/B)
• Familiarity with safety-critical or mission-critical development processes and standards
• Prior experience as a technical lead or staff-level IC before moving into management