Lead, Firmware Engineer

queueinc•Newark, CA

About The Position

We are seeking a Lead Firmware Engineer to lead our firmware efforts hands-on and build the team that owns it. This role requires carrying the same technical bar as a Staff engineer while also owning the delivery of your people through mentoring, hiring, and setting standards. You will be responsible for the firmware that physically moves medication, including bare-metal/RTOS software on motor-control microcontrollers, the PreScript interface to the edge agent, safety interlocks, and sensor cross-checks. You will also own scaling the firmware team from 5 robots to the field, which includes recruiting, growing engineers, defining firmware development processes, and running the interview loop. You will report to the Head of Software Engineering, work directly with the CTO on motor-control and hardware interfaces, and partner with edge and hardware teams.

Requirements

8-12+ years of firmware/embedded experience.
Experience in senior, staff, or lead IC roles.
Real experience scaling a team and delivering through others.
Staff-level firmware depth: bare-metal/RTOS in C/C++ and/or Rust, motor/motion control, ARM Cortex-M, safety-critical systems.
Proven ability to ship hard subsystems yourself.
People leadership experience: mentoring engineers, hiring and running interview loops, and accountability for a team's delivery.
Experience having hard performance conversations.
Strong communication skills: ability to make firmware legible to executives and adjacent teams, and write decisions down for audit.

Nice To Haves

Experience taking products from concept to production release (ground-up builder).
Experience with power electronics/gate drivers.
Experience with Jetson/embedded Linux adjacency.
Experience in robotics.
Experience in healthcare or other regulated/audited industry.

Responsibilities

Own the firmware (hands-on) including motor control, the PreScript firmware interface, sensor acquisition and cross-check, on-firmware safety state machines, and firmware observability.
Set the technical standard for firmware development.
Own the firmware team's delivery, including roadmap, estimates, trade-offs, and shipping.
Mentor, sponsor, and develop engineers on the firmware team.
Define and run the firmware interview loop, calibrate the rubric, and make hiring decisions.
Run performance conversations and set the quality bar for the team.
Own the firmware team's contracts with edge, hardware/CTO, and the broader software organization.
Communicate clearly across all teams.