Role Purpose
We are looking for a handson Lead Firmware Engineer who will lead and grow our Embedded Hardware and Embedded Firmware teams and take endtoend responsibility for the technical direction, architecture, execution quality, and delivery of embedded electronics used in industrial drives, servo inverters, frequency inverters, and motion/safety products.
This role is not a pure people manager. The successful candidate will actively contribute to architecture, design & code reviews, design & code if needed, technical problem solving, and critical debugging, while also mentoring engineers, aligning teams, and ensuring disciplined engineering practices.
Products: Servo drives, VFDs, motion controllers, safety drives
Key Interfaces: Controls, Mechanical, System Architecture, Manufacturing, Quality, Cybersecurity, Functional Safety
Key Responsibilities
- Technical Leadership & Architecture Ownership
- Own the overall embedded electronics architecture spanning:
- Firmware architecture (boot, RTOS, drivers, middleware, communication)
- HW–FW partitioning and interfaces
- Define technology roadmaps for:
- Power management and embedded hardware platforms
- Firmware frameworks, RTOS, and toolchains
- Drive design decisions balancing performance, cost, reliability, cybersecurity, and manufacturability.
- Act as the technical escalation point for complex crossdomain issues (HW–FW–System).
- HandsOn Engineering Contribution
Actively participate in:
- Hardware architecture reviews, schematic reviews, and PCB layout reviews (SI/PI/EMC).
- Firmware architecture discussions, code reviews, and critical module design.
- Support hardware bringup and early prototype debugging, including:
- Powerup, clocks, resets, interfaces
- Joint HW–FW debug using oscilloscope, logic analyzer, JTAG/SWD
- Guide teams in rootcause analysis of field, EMC, reliability, or performance issues.
- Be technically deep enough to challenge assumptions, not just coordinate tasks.
- Embedded Hardware Leadership
Guide the team on:
- Embedded schematic design (MCU/SoC interfaces, analog frontends, protection, monitoring)
- Power supply architecture (DC/DC, LDOs, sequencing, supervision)
- Component selection, derating, reliability and lifecycle management
- Ensure robust EMC/EMIaware design practices and support troubleshooting.
- Drive collaboration with PCB layout, manufacturing (EMS), and test teams.
- Oversee hardware verification strategies, including electrical, functional, and environmental testing.
- Embedded Firmware Leadership
- Lead firmware development for:
- Lowlevel drivers and peripherals
- Realtime firmware (RTOS / baremetal)
- Bootloaders and firmware update mechanisms
- Communication stacks (EtherCAT, CAN, PROFINET, IOLink, etc.)
Guide implementation of:
- Secure boot, cryptography, key management
- Secure firmware update and rollback strategies
- Ensure compliance with secure development practices and cybersecurity requirements (e.g., IEC 62443).
- Promote structured software engineering: modularity, testability, and maintainability.
- CrossFunctional System Ownership
- Controls engineers (PWM, ADC timing, realtime constraints)
- System architects (partitioning, performance budgets)
- Functional safety and cybersecurity stakeholders
- Ensure HW–FW–System alignment on requirements, interfaces, and verification.
- Support certifications, audits, and customer escalations when required.
- Team Leadership & People Development
- Lead, mentor, and technically coach hardware and firmware engineers.
- Build a highperformance engineering culture:
- Engineering discipline and quality mindset
- Support hiring, onboarding, and capability development of the team.
- Balance delivery pressure with longterm technical excellence.
- Process, Quality & Execution Excellence
- Structured development processes
- Configuration and change management
- Documentation and traceability
- CI concepts for firmware and hardware verification
- Ensure readiness for industrialization and series production.
Required Qualifications & Experience
Education
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in:
- or a closely related field.
Experience
9 to 12 + years of experience in embedded systems development.
Strong background in both embedded firmware and hardware ideally. Optionally, a candidate with 70% strength in embedded firmware & about 30% strength in embedded hardware is also ok.
Someone who has being into Technical Manager role for less than 1.5 years or has been recently promoted to this role and is hands-on. (himself writes C code, does good system & hardware design, does code & design reviews)
Someone who is System Architect or a Technical lead, is hands-on, technically managing a team of 4 to 6 engineers, collaborating with other teams, regularly interacting with European or US customers, stakeholders for requirements, design & delivery etc.
Experience with industrial electronics, preferably:
- Motion or power electronics products.
- Mandatory Technical Skills
- Analog and digital circuits
- Power management and sequencing
Experience with:
- PCB design flows and layout reviews
- EMC/EMI fundamentals and debugging
- Handson lab experience (scope, logic analyzer, power analysis).
- Strong embedded C expertise.
- Realtime firmware development (RTOS or baremetal).
- Debugging using JTAG/SWD, trace tools.
- Bootloader and firmware update concepts.
- Experience with industrial communication interfaces.
- Ability to reason across HW, FW, timing, power, and system constraints.
- Strong debugging and rootcause analysis skills.
Desirable / ValueAdd Skills
Experience with:
- EtherCAT, CAN, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, IOLink
- Motor control or drive systems
- Cybersecurity knowledge (Secure Boot, cryptography, IEC 62443).
- Functional safety exposure (SIL2 / SIL3 environments).
- Automated testing, scripting, or CI concepts.
Behavioral & Leadership Expectations
- Strong technical credibility — respected by engineers.
- Structured, analytical problemsolving approach.
- Ability to lead through influence, not hierarchy alone.
- Clear communicator across technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
- Proactive, ownershipdriven, and qualityoriented mindset.
- Comfortable working in agile and evolving environments.
Must Have
9 to 12 years experience as a Firmware Engineer
- Embedded Hardware: Deep understanding of MCU/SoC hardware design and Analog and digital circuits.
- Experience with PCB design flows and layout reviews and EMC/EMI fundamentals and debugging
- Hands on lab experience (scope, logic analyzer, power analysis).
- Strong embedded C expertise.
- Real time firmware development (RTOS or bare metal).
- Debugging using JTAG/SWD, trace tools.
- Bootloader and firmware update concepts.
- Experience with industrial communication interfaces.
- Ability to reason across HW, FW, timing, power, and system constraints.
- Strong debugging and root cause analysis skills.
