Director of Hardware and Firmware Engineering

American Innovations • Austin, TX

1d • Onsite

About The Position

As Director, Firmware and Hardware Engineering, you'll provide unified technical leadership across firmware, electronics, and mechanical engineering for a small, senior team building rugged, field-deployed embedded systems. You'll be the integration point between disciplines — setting the firmware architecture and system-level design standards, catching issues on the bench before they reach the field, and driving AI-first practices into how the team designs, tests, and documents its work. This is a player-coach role: you'll balance strategic, system-level leadership with hands-on technical direction, without becoming the critical path yourself.

Requirements

• A bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field — or an equivalent combination of education and demonstrated embedded-product experience
• 10+ years developing shipped embedded products, with deep firmware expertise: C/C++ on microcontrollers, RTOS or disciplined bare-metal, HAL/drivers, bootloaders and field firmware update, low-power operation, and connectivity integration (serial, BLE, cellular, satellite, and/or GPS/GNSS)
• 2+ years leading engineers as a people manager or technical lead of a small hardware/firmware team, comfortable operating as a player-coach
• Electronics literacy sufficient to lead schematic and layout reviews, board bring-up, and mixed-signal/power trade-offs (ADC, isolation, EMI, power budget)
• Mechanical fluency sufficient to set packaging requirements (ingress, thermal, antenna keep-outs, service access), judge DFM, and direct contract-manufacturer mechanical work
• Demonstrated daily use of AI tools in engineering or engineering-management work, with a track record of driving team-wide adoption with measurable effect
• A track record of taking products from concept through production and field performance, including ownership of customer or field issues
• Experience leading or partnering with a senior embedded/firmware test-automation or HIL engineer — setting outcomes and early system validation, not treating them as end-of-line QA
• Experience coaching firmware, electronics, and mechanical contributors to co-design and validate at the system level early, rather than working in sequential handoffs with late integration testing

Nice To Haves

• Industrial instrumentation, test and measurement, or rugged outdoor electronics experience (low-power, wide temperature, surge/EMI-adjacent environments)
• Hardware-in-the-loop, firmware CI, and design-for-test experience (test points, diagnostic interfaces) on MCU-class products
• Experience shipping products where measurement accuracy, wireless/GPS, power, and packaging had to be traded off as one system
• Cellular, satellite, BLE, and GPS/GNSS integration on MCU-class products — not only Linux/Android gateways or mobile apps
• Experience directing mechanical contractors or a contract manufacturer on enclosures and production documentation
• People leadership of mixed firmware, electrical, and mechanical contributors on a small team

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership across firmware, electronics, and mechanical engineering so the team ships one integrated customer-facing system — not three disciplines that only come together at the end
• Champion an AI-first design framework across hardware, firmware, and mechanical work, embedding AI into how the team designs, reviews, and documents
• Set and hold the firmware standard — architecture, coding practice, and field-release hygiene — while staying electronics-literate and mechanically fluent enough to direct schematic, bring-up, packaging, DFM, and contract-manufacturer decisions as system decisions
• Require co-design and early system validation across disciplines, catching issues on the bench/HIL while designs can still change
• Oversee execution of firmware, electronics, and mechanical programs from concept through production and field performance, as a player-coach rather than the critical-path implementer
• Foster system-level ownership, holding engineers accountable for how their work performs in the finished product, not just their own discipline's output
• Establish and monitor KPIs for schedule, quality, field issues, and firmware release health
• Make and document the system-level trade-off calls between firmware, electronics, and mechanical work, guided by customer outcomes like accuracy, battery life, survivability, and installability
• Enable your senior Firmware Test Automation engineer to own embedded test architecture (HIL, automation, CI) as a first-class system used from early bring-up onward
• Oversee resource allocation, priorities, and budget across firmware, electronics, and mechanical work, including lab/HIL needs, contractors, and manufacturing partners
• Maintain living system documentation — pin maps, power/thermal budgets, antenna/mechanical keep-outs, and test interfaces — visible across all disciplines
• Lead a small multi-discipline engineering team spanning firmware, electronics, and mechanical, including a senior Firmware Test Automation engineer
• Grow firmware and system capability through hiring, mentoring, and a high review bar; coach engineers across all disciplines to think and validate at the system level
• Own high-severity field issues as system-level problems, driving root cause analysis that closes the loop into design and earlier system-level testing
• Partner with Product to champion technician- and user-centered design decisions
• Model AI proficiency personally and drive team-wide adoption, measured by cycle time and defect outcomes rather than tool count
• Invest in your own growth — staying current with embedded systems, HIL/system-validation practice, and AI-assisted design review, and building relationships across the broader engineering community.

Benefits

• Competitive Medical/Dental/Vision Insurance
• Company Provided Life and Disability Insurance
• Paid Family Leave
• Matching 401k
• Supportive and collaborative work environment
• A rewarding culture with a focus on positive business practices and protecting the environment

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director