Director of Embedded Systems

Director, Embedded Systems Engineering | Hardware | AI / Autonomous Vehicles

About the Role

Autonomous vehicles don't just run on algorithms - they run on hardware that has to work flawlessly at highway speeds, in every weather condition, on every road. We're working with a well-funded, AI-first autonomous vehicle company at the intersection of silicon, firmware, and physical reality, where the autonomy stack meets the real world.

As Director of Embedded Systems Engineering, you'll own the full vertical: from the compute platforms and electrical architecture that power the trucks, to the firmware layer that makes those platforms deterministic, safe, and production-ready. This is the role that closes the loop between the AI-first autonomy platform and the hardware it runs on - shaping how the company scales from proving the technology to deploying it commercially.

What You'll Do

• Own the full embedded systems vertical - compute hardware selection and bring-up, electrical architecture, module design (PCBAs), and all firmware from bootloaders to real-time control loops.
• Lead and grow a team of embedded, firmware, and electrical engineers, setting technical direction and building a culture of rigor and ownership.
• Define firmware architecture and support hardware architecture for next-gen vehicle compute platforms, balancing performance, thermal constraints, functional safety (ISO 26262), and production scalability.
• Drive hardware-software co-design with Perception, Planning, and Systems Integration teams.
• Establish engineering standards for firmware development, hardware validation, and system bring-up.
• Manage vendor and supplier relationships for compute modules, FPGAs, SoCs, and power electronics.
• Serve as the technical authority on embedded reliability and hardware safety across design reviews and commercialization planning.

What You Bring

• 12+ years of hands-on embedded systems experience, including leadership roles with direct reports.
• Deep firmware expertise - production-quality C/C++/Rust for bare-metal and RTOS environments, device drivers, HALs, real-time scheduling.
• Experience designing or owning electrical architectures — power distribution, signal integrity, EMC/EMI, compute platform integration.
• A track record of taking safety-critical or high-reliability embedded systems from prototype to production.
• Fluency in hardware bring-up: schematic review, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, working with EE teams through DVT/PVT.
• Experience with automotive or robotics platforms — CAN, Ethernet, PCIe; ISO 26262 or DO-178C familiarity a strong plus.
• A collaborative, first-principles thinker who builds teams as carefully as systems.

Bonus

• AV/ADAS platform experience with sensor compute or high-bandwidth data paths.
• FPGA development (Xilinx/AMD or Intel/Altera).
• Hardware security, secure boot, or trusted execution environment exposure.
• Experience managing NRE budgets and working with CMs/ODMs through production bring-up.
• Background in systems safety processes (FMEA, FTA, DFMEA).

To apply, please submit your resume and a brief note on your relevant experience.