Manager, Firmware Engineering

In todays dynamic worksites seamless collaboration between people and machines is essential. FORTs platform ensures safe secure and dynamic control that surpasses legacy systems and next-generation AI capabilities.

While autonomous machines offer significant advantages they also introduce new safety challenges. FORT addresses these concerns by providing solutions such as the Wireless E-Stop which allows operators to instantly stop any machine from a safe distance enhancing safety during emergencies.

Additionally FORTs Safe Remote Control enables operators to manage heavy machinery remotely reducing the risk of accidents and improving visibility.

By ensuring communications integrity across any network FORT empowers customers to protect their most valuable assetspeople data and machinesensuring they remain safe and secure.

This role is based in Philadelphia and works on a hybrid schedule with a minimum of three days a week in the office.

The Firmware Engineering Manager owns FORTs firmware group end-to-end (its people delivery and technical health) while still building firmware directly. About half your time is hands-on embedded engineering and half is leading through the team. You own the teams development process directly supported by the Program Management and Systems Engineering functions. You work in three directions: down and in on your teams health and performance up and out with a real engineering voice into Product and Program planning and across to keep firmware coherent with the peer groups (cloud hardware systems safety). Senior engineers on the team own the firmware architecture and you make sure they have the direction the standards and the authority to do it well. Firmware sits closest to the safety layer FORT sells so both the technical bar and the quality process have to be strong enough to carry that level of rigor while the team still delivers at pace.

The hands-on half. You contribute directly to the embedded stack much of it filling the gaps around the team so the work keeps moving:

• Write and review production C/C for safety-critical embedded devices taking well-scoped components through implementation test and release.
• Implement real-time firmware for RTOS targets (Zephyr/FreeRTOS) and bare-metal environments along with Embedded Linux user-space applications.
• Bring up new hardware debug hard problems with JTAG GDB oscilloscopes and logic analyzers and tune performance on constrained targets.
• Maintain and improve the firmware CI/CD pipelines (GitLab) the test automation behind them and hardware-in-the-loop coverage.
• Pick up the work that would otherwise sit unclaimed in a given sprint whether that is an unfinished integration a stubborn defect a driver or BSP task or a gap left by a vacancy or a competing priority.

The leadership half. You own the group and the way it works:

• Agile Scrum process end-to-end: backlog grooming cadence and ceremonies estimation and forecasting.
• Technical health and feasibility of the backlog advocate for platform and technical-debt work and decline commitments that the team cannot feasibly deliver.
• Quality process: code review testing standards a real definition of done and corrective retrospectives strong enough to carry FORTs safety-critical bar without depending on you as the personal backstop on every artifact.
• Workforce management: hiring performance and career conversations team structure and workload and burnout.
• Carry engineerings opinion on technical direction sequencing and estimation into Product and Program forums and surface cross-team integration risks early particularly at the firmware boundaries with hardware cloud and systems.

Delivery predictability quality goal achievement and retention plus improvement over time in five team metrics: planning accuracy estimation accuracy velocity defect escapes and engagement.

• Solid current embedded expertise across C and C RTOS and Embedded Linux development including hardware bring-up low-level debugging standard interfaces (UART SPI I2C USB CAN) IP networking and Python for automation with firsthand experience owning firmware CI/CD.
• Technical judgment strong enough to assess feasibility estimation and risk and to shape or push back on commitments.
• Solid management capability across performance development and capacity planning and comfort owning a team end-to-end with a broad scope and matching autonomy.
• The instinct to delegate real authority and build systems rather than becoming the bottleneck.
• Typically 6 years of embedded software development with at least 2 years leading or managing engineers and a B.S. in Computer Engineering Electrical Engineering Computer Science or equivalent experience.
• Nice to have: a background in functional safety or another regulated industry (medical automotive aerospace industrial).

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