Engineering Manager, Embedded Software

Brain Corp is a San Diego, California, USA-based AI company creating transformative core technology for the robotics industry. Our purpose is to create autonomous technology that helps the real world work better. Brain's robotic and AI solutions help retailers ensure that the right product is on the right shelf at the right price, in a clean environment. Through the BrainOS® Robotics Platform, which powers the largest global fleet of the Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) in operation in commercial public spaces, Brain Corp delivers insightful and efficient automated solutions in both commercial floor cleaning and inventory management, empowering organizations and their employees to achieve more. Brain Corp currently powers more than 30,000 AMRs, representing the largest fleet of its kind in the world. Brain Corp is funded by the SoftBank Vision Fund, Clearbridge, and Qualcomm Ventures.

Position Overview:

The Manager of Embedded Software leads the Firmware team, directing technical strategy and ensuring the execution of key projects that power the company’s robotic platforms. This role is responsible for aligning the team’s efforts with broader strategic goals, making critical prioritization tradeoffs, and facilitating seamless cross-functional collaboration. 

This role is pivotal in developing the engineering team, fostering a high-performance culture, and translating complex business objectives into actionable technical roadmaps.

Essential Job Functions:

Team Leadership & Development: 

• Mentor and manage a team of firmware engineers, establishing best practices for software development while fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership and accountability
• Drive high-performance results by conducting regular mentoring and performance reviews to support long-term career growth within the team 
• Facilitate technical discussions and encourage a collaborative environment to reach higher performance solutions and meet strict delivery deadlines

Strategic Operations & Project Management

• Direct project management for all firmware programs, ensuring tasks are prioritized, resources are effectively allocated and projects remain on track
• Navigate high-level tradeoffs between competing business priorities to ensure project deadlines are met without compromising quality
• Lead high-level interactions with hardware vendors and external partners to translate business needs into technical specifications and drive feature investigations
• Partner cross-functionally with Hardware, Product, Autonomy, and Cloud teams to align on feature requirements, integration schedules, and product delivery

Technical Excellence & Architecture

• Provide architectural guidance for complex firmware systems (RTOS and Embedded Linux) to ensure reliability and scalability across multiple robot modalities
• Optimize development velocity by driving improvements in software development processes, CI/CD pipelines, and release management
• Oversee the triage and resolution of critical production and customer issues, utilizing data analytics to implement  long-term architectural fixes
• Directly contribute to development activities to achieve commitments as required
• Perform other duties and projects as assigned

Education and/or Work Experience Requirements:  

• BS or MS in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering
• 5+ years of professional experience in embedded software development, including 2-3 years in a formal people management, or managing cross-disciplinary teams
• Proven track record in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or complex IoT products
• Strong experience with Agile methodologies and the full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

Required Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other Characteristics: 

• Ability to understand market needs and translate them into engineering priorities
• Ability to influence architectural standards and engineering best practices across the organization, ensuring long-term scalability and reliability for multiple robotic platforms 
• Strong understanding of ARM Cortex microcontrollers, Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS), and hardware interfaces (CAN, I2C, SPI, Ethernet)
• Experience in system architecture, design patterns, and best practices in embedded software
• Exceptional communication skills for presenting technical strategies to non-technical stakeholders and negotiating with OEMs and vendors
• Strong ability to establish best practices for Generative AI integration within embedded systems; expert at driving the adoption of AI-augmented tools to optimize firmware design, streamline debugging, and systematically reduce technical debt across the development lifecycle
• Familiarity with Linux environments, build systems (Makefile and/or CMake), and test automation frameworks (pytest)
• Familiarity with release management and versioning

Things That Make a Difference:

• MS in computer science, software engineering or a related field
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and related tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD)
• Experience with Github, JIRA, and Jenkins tools for source control, tracking, and testing.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Essential functions may require maintaining the physical condition necessary for sitting, walking or standing for periods of time; operating a computer and keyboard; use of hands to finger and grasp; talk and hear at normal room levels; visual acuity to determine the accuracy, neatness, and thoroughness of the work assigned or to make general observations of facilities or structures; push or pull up to 20 pounds.

Salary Range:

The anticipated salary range for candidates who will work in San Diego, California is $160,603 to $205,215. The final salary offered to a successful candidate will be dependent on several factors that may include but are not limited to the type and length of experience within the job, type and length of experience within the industry, education, etc. Brain Corp is a multi-state employer and this salary range may not reflect positions that work in other states.

In addition to base pay, our competitive total rewards package consists of:

• A discretionary annual target bonus
• Stock options
• 401(k) plan with match (no waiting period and immediate vesting)
• Comprehensive suite of insurance benefits for employees (and their families) to include a variety of medical plan options (including an HSA with employer contribution), dental, vision, life and disability insurance, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Legal/Identity support plans, pet insurance.
• Access to Flexible Spending Accounts (Medical and Dependent Care)
• Generous paid time off including flexible vacation, Paid Sick Leave, time off for volunteering in the community, 10 paid company holidays, and a winter company shutdown

Additional Perks include:

• Daily on-site lunch available in the San Diego office
• On-campus gym including pool and tennis courts in the San Diego office
• Opportunities to connect with colleagues including monthly game nights, hikes, wellness challenges, and community events 
• Internal continuous learning events 
• Opportunities to share your own interests and hobbies with the Company