Engineering Manager - Embedded Firmware

About the job

Overview

Lead the firmware engineering organization responsible for next-generation networked irrigation devices and cloud-connected systems. This role creates an environment in which Firmware Engineers can succeed, combining credible technical leadership with disciplined people management, budget ownership, project tracking, portfolio prioritization, and resource planning.

The Engineering Manager is accountable for team capability, execution predictability, encouraging performance via AI-assisted work, and organizational health. The manager aligns firmware architecture, process, and delivery with product and business priorities, removes barriers, manages risk, and ensures that the team applies sound engineering, cybersecurity, compliance, DevOps, and quality practices across the product lifecycle.

Position Summary

The Engineering Manager, Firmware, leads and manages a capable team that includes Principal Firmware Engineers, Leads, and Senior Engineers. The manager translates business and portfolio priorities into executable team plans, establishes clear ownership and decision mechanisms, and holds the organization accountable for delivery from concept through production, sustaining, and end-of-life.

This role is expected to understand complex embedded and connected-product tradeoffs well enough to guide decisions, challenge assumptions, and align stakeholders while supporting the leadership of Principal Engineers and Leads. Success requires strong coaching, communication, financial judgment, program governance, organizational planning, and cross-functional leadership.

Responsibilities

People Leadership & Organization Development

• Lead, coach, and develop Firmware engineering professionals; set clear expectations and provide regular feedback.

• Build an inclusive, result-oriented culture that rewards technical excellence, collaboration, ownership, and continuous improvement.

• Establish role clarity between people management, technical leadership, architecture ownership, and project execution.

• Own talent planning, hiring, onboarding, development plans, succession planning, retention, and performance management.

• Create growth paths that expand technical depth, systems thinking, leadership capacity, and business judgment.

• Balance hands-on managerial engagement with appropriate delegation to Principal Engineers and technical leads.

Technical & Architectural Leadership

• Provide management oversight for firmware and technical strategy across multiple product generations.

• Empower Principal Engineers and Leads to lead architecture decisions, design reviews, coding practices, cybersecurity, DevOps, and technical risk resolution.

• Ensure key technical decisions are documented, reviewed by the right stakeholders, and aligned with product, platform, security, compliance, quality, and lifecycle needs.

• Maintain sufficient technical depth in embedded systems, RTOS platforms, IoT connectivity, cybersecurity, cloud integration, test automation, and product compliance to guide priorities and evaluate risk.

• Promote reuse, platform thinking, maintainability, reliability, and disciplined technology lifecycle management to meet short term and long-term business goals.

Portfolio, Project Tracking & Delivery

• Translate product roadmaps and business priorities into an integrated firmware portfolio plan with clear scope, milestones, dependencies, staffing assumptions, and decision points.

• Establish consistent project tracking, reviews, and escalation mechanisms across firmware programs.

• Monitor commitments, progress, risks, issues, dependencies, quality indicators, and recovery plans; communicate status clearly to engineering and business stakeholders.

• Drive proactive risk management and timely tradeoff decisions involving scope, schedule, resources, quality, cost, and technical debt.

• Ensure product work is managed through concept, development, verification, production release, sustaining, and end-of-life.

• Support the organization’s SAFe/Agile operating process by helping define team roles, ownership, assignments, backlog alignment, planning inputs, PI objectives, sprint commitments, and cross-team coordination expectations.

• Partner with program and product leaders to improve delivery predictability without compromising safety, security, compliance, or product quality.

Budget & Financial Management

• Develop, propose, and manage the firmware organization budget in alignment with approved business and portfolio priorities.

• Plan and track labor, contractors, tools, licenses, development equipment, prototypes, test infrastructure, training, travel, and other operating needs.

• Provide clear budget forecasts, variance explanations, options, and corrective actions to leadership.

• Support capital and operating expense planning and ensure spending follows applicable company controls, approval processes, tracking and reporting.

Resource & Capacity Management

• Maintain a forward-looking resource plan covering current commitments, new product introductions, sustaining demand, technical debt, platform investment, and unplanned support.

• Allocate people and specialized skills across programs based on business priority, risk, dependencies, and development needs.

• Identify capacity gaps, bottlenecks, single points of failure, and critical-skill risks; develop hiring, contracting, cross-training, or sequencing responses.

• Negotiate priorities and resource tradeoffs with Product Management, Program Management, Systems, Hardware, Cloud, Mobile, Quality, Manufacturing, and other partners.

• Protect appropriate capacity for architecture, automation, cybersecurity, compliance, platform health, and continuous improvement.

Engineering Operations, Quality & Compliance

• Establish measurable engineering objectives and management routines for execution, quality, reliability, security, and organizational capability.

• Sponsor CI/CD, automated testing, static analysis, hardware-in-the-loop testing, release management, traceability, and engineering metrics.

• Ensure the team applies security-by-design, threat modeling, vulnerability remediation, secure update, and credential-management practices.

• Ensure firmware development supports applicable product safety, wireless, EMC, cybersecurity, and regulatory obligations.

• Ensure firmware support for fleet management and ecosystem performance measurement and analysis aligns with business goals and drives strong collaboration with cloud operations and the cloud and mobile applications teams.

• Drive root-cause learning, corrective action, retrospectives, and systemic improvement after significant quality or delivery events.

Cross-Functional & Executive Communication

• Represent firmware engineering in portfolio, roadmap, architecture, program, budget, and operational reviews.

• Communicate decisions, assumptions, status, risk, capacity constraints, and investment needs clearly and concisely to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Build productive relationships across Systems Engineering, Hardware Engineering, Cloud Engineering, Mobile App Development, Product Management, Program Management, Quality Assurance, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and external partners.

• Resolve conflicts constructively and escalate material issues with options, impacts, and recommendations.

Decision Rights & Accountability

• Accountable for people leadership, team health, staffing, capability development, resource allocation, budget management, and delivery governance.

• Accountable for communicating portfolio status and ensuring risks, issues, and recovery actions have clear owners.

• Partners with Principal Engineers on technical strategy; Principal Engineers retain delegated technical authority within defined architecture and design areas.

• Partners with Product and Program leadership on scope, priority, schedule, and business tradeoffs.

• Escalates decisions that exceed delegated budget, staffing, technical, quality, security, or portfolio authority.

Measures of Success

• A capable, performant team with clearly defined roles, strong technical leadership, and visible development and succession plans.

• A prioritized, resource-backed firmware portfolio with transparent status, dependencies, risks, and decisions.

• Responsible budget performance with credible forecasts and timely variance management.

• High delivery predictability, product quality, security, maintainability, and reuse across product generations.

• Balanced investment across new products, sustaining, platforms, automation, compliance, technical debt, and team capability.

• Strong cross-functional trust and timely escalation of material tradeoffs.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum: Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Science, a related technical discipline, or 10+ years equivalent industry experience.

• Substantial experience leading embedded software teams to deliver and support commercial IoT and other products.

• Ability to lead the team to leverage Copilot/ChatGPT and newer code-generation tools, static-analysis tools like CodeSonar, and AI-based test development while maintaining engineering rigor and verification discipline.

• Demonstrated direct people-management experience, including coaching, hiring, development, performance management, and organizational planning.

• Demonstrated ownership of project or portfolio tracking, resource planning, and budget or financial management.

• Experience managing work across new product development, production release, sustaining, and end-of-life.

• Experience partnering across hardware, systems, cloud, mobile, product, program, quality, manufacturing, and compliance functions.

• Experience working within SAFe/Agile organizations, including participation in PI planning, backlog alignment, role and ownership definition, sprint planning, delivery commitments, and cross-team dependency coordination.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Preferred: Master's degree in relevant engineering discipline, including systems engineering, cybersecurity, software architecture, or engineering management.

• Strong preference for experience with connected IoT products, real-time systems, cybersecurity, automation, and regulated product development.

Leadership Competencies

• Driven: Creates urgency, focus, initiative, and resilience around business outcomes.

• Delivers: Achieves quality results, timely decisions, stakeholder value, and commitments.

• Collaborates: Works across teams, seeks perspectives, resolves conflict, and recognizes contributions.

• Always Improves: Develops self and teams through learning, feedback, and continuous improvement.

• Communicates Effectively: Communicates clearly, listens actively, adapts message, and shares timely information.

• Develops Strong Teams: Attracts, develops, retains, coaches, and manages talent for business needs.

• Brings Out the Best in People: Aligns goals, delegates responsibly, leverages strengths, and motivates performance.

What the Ideal Engineering Manager Looks Like

• Creates clarity without micromanaging.

• Uses data and judgment to make priority, staffing, and investment tradeoffs.

• Continuously learns new technologies and applies best practice AI use/methodologies.

• Builds leaders and durable engineering systems, not dependence on a single individual.

• Protects engineering rigor while maintaining urgency and business focus.

• Connects firmware decisions to the complete product system and customer outcome.

Salary range for candidates based in California: $248,000 - $310,000

Salary ranges include base salary and annual incentive bonus if applicable.

Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.

Rain Bird is an Equal Opportunity Employer