Director of Hardware and Firmware Engineering

Description

Director, Firmware and Hardware Engineering

Austin, TX • On-site, Monday–Friday

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.

What You'll Do:

• 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
• You'll also 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.

Requirements

What You'll Need to Succeed:  

• 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 Have:

• 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

What We Can Offer You: 

• 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

Successful applicants must be eligible to work in the US (visa sponsorship is not provided at this time) and must be able to pass a pre-employment background and drug test. American Innovations is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.