Director, Firmware Architecture & Delivery

SharkNinja•Needham, MA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

SharkNinja is a global product design and technology company. The Director of Embedded Firmware is a senior US-based firmware leader, accountable for both the technical direction and architecture that governs firmware across SharkNinja's global portfolio, and the delivery of firmware for SharkNinja products. This role defines the interfaces, hardware abstraction standards, and engineering practices that every firmware program is built and gated against. This leader is responsible for overseeing the US firmware development organization including managing both internally and externally generated embedded firmware across the complete SharkNinja product portfolio. This role is a peer to the Connected Firmware director and coordinates with the Embedded Firmware director in Asia.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline required.
12+ years of embedded software and firmware engineering experience.
5+ years leading engineering organizations, including direct people leadership of senior engineers and managers.
Demonstrated experience owning both technical standards and delivery accountability, with a track record of holding standards under schedule pressure.
Demonstrated experience defining architecture executed by ODM/JDM partners and enforcing standards against outsourced development.
Proven track record establishing CI/CD, static analysis, and automated test infrastructure for embedded programs.
Experience developing firmware for consumer electronics, home appliances, robotics, IoT devices, or related high-volume industries.
Embedded firmware architecture, HAL/API design, and platform reuse.
Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS).
OTA software update architecture.
Build systems and toolchains (gcc, CMake, headless builds), Git-based source control, static analysis.
Test automation frameworks and hardware-in-the-loop validation.
Requirements definition, design review, and acceptance criteria for outsourced development.
Hardware-software integration and product bring-up.
Technology Leadership
Standards and Governance Discipline
Delivery Execution and Accountability
Vendor and Partner Technical Management
Cross-Functional Influence
Talent Development
Executive Communication

Nice To Haves

Master's degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Own firmware architecture, interface definitions, and hardware abstraction (HAL/API) standards across all product categories, globally.
Establish architectural standards for real-time operating systems, connectivity frameworks, device intelligence, and edge processing.
Drive technical decisions on microcontroller and processor architecture, wireless technologies, display technologies, and software ecosystems in partnership with Hardware Engineering.
Maximize reuse of proven internal code, vendor SDKs, and reference designs to meet speed-to-market demands; reserve in-house development for durable differentiation, safety, security, and IP.
Translate architecture into clear, enforceable requirements that development partners execute against without interpretation.
Define and maintain the engineering standards applied to internal developers and third-party suppliers alike — source control, build systems, branch and merge strategy, and release requirements.
Own the technical requirements embedded in supplier agreements, including the pre-production reproducibility deliverables: source, toolchain, and signed build manifest sufficient to independently rebuild shipping binaries.
Establish design review and gating checkpoints that partner deliverables clear before integration.
Partner with Systems Engineering and NPD to define product operation, key components, and critical firmware behavior at design time, closing hardware/software integration gaps before they surface at integration.
Own delivery commitments for internally developed firmware — schedule, quality, and scope.
Lead the US embedded firmware organization; build capability, capacity, and technical bench strength.
Ensure firmware integrates cleanly with hardware, cloud services, mobile applications, and user interfaces.
Partner with other global firmware leadership to deliver programs spanning all sites and on shared platform work.
Own the embedded test automation framework: CI pipeline design, static analysis tooling, and the test-harness infrastructure that makes regression testing repeatable across categories.
Own embedded Bitbucket integration, headless build requirements, and per-commit enforcement of code quality across internal and supplier repositories.
Build the mechanism Quality gates against — this function builds the scaffolding; acceptance criteria and gate authority remain with Embedded QA & Governance.
Build and lead a senior technical team spanning architecture and delivery, with proven experience directing ODM and JDM partners.
Develop technical leadership talent and strengthen the architect and engineering career paths within Firmware Engineering.
Serve as a senior technical voice in partner capability assessment and consolidation decisions.
Communicate technical direction, delivery status, and risk to Firmware and EE executive leadership.