DevOps Lead for Embedded Systems

About the Company

A unique opportunity with a global leader in secure, smart-connected physical systems. They are currently scaling their next-generation IoT product ecosystem and seeking a highly specialized DevOps Lead for Embedded Systems to bridge the gap between physical hardware and cloud-enabled continuous integration.

About the Role

This is not a traditional web/cloud DevOps position. In this role, your code directly controls and validates physical, battery-operated devices. You will lead an automated testing team, scale physical Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test environments, and pioneer the integration of AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate the firmware development lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Engineering Leadership: Manage, mentor, and grow a team of Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs) and automation engineers. Establish modern QA career paths, onboarding protocols, and KPIs.
• Infrastructure & CI/CD Ownership: Direct, scale, and optimize enterprise-grade CI/CD pipelines (GitLab) specifically tailored for complex firmware builds, cross-compilation, and secure artifact management.
• Physical Automation (HIL): Own and expand physical Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) server fleets and custom test fixture infrastructures to validate production-level hardware.
• Secure Release Management: Manage the end-to-end firmware release cycle, including secure cryptographic signing pipelines, Over-the-Air (OTA) firmware packaging, and version traceability.
• Workflow Acceleration & AI Integration: Design and implement intelligent automation workflows—including the integration of custom AI agents and developer tooling—to accelerate debugging and test generation.

Qualifications

• Experience: 8+ years of DevOps/Infrastructure experience, with at least 5 years strictly dedicated to embedded systems, IoT, or firmware CI/CD pipelines.
• Team Leadership: Proven experience managing, mentoring, and scaling technical teams (QA, SDET, or test automation) in an Agile or Scaled Agile environment.
• CI/CD Pipeline Mastery: Expert-level capability designing and managing robust pipeline architectures, runner fleets, and containerized build environments.
• Test Automation & Scripting: Strong coding skills in Python alongside hands-on experience building structured, keyword-driven automated test suites.
• Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL): Direct experience configuring and maintaining physical HIL test environments to validate software on physical devices.
• IoT Protocols: Practical understanding of low-power wireless protocols (such as BLE, mesh, or standard serial communication) at the integration testing level.

Preferred Skills

• Familiarity with flashing, debugging, and testing major low-power microcontroller platforms (e.g., ARM Cortex-M architecture).
• Experience designing or integrating custom hardware test fixtures using microcontrollers.
• Familiarity with automated hardware/firmware simulation tools in a CI environment.
• Interest or hands-on experience developing custom AI/LLM developer tooling (such as API connectors, agent integrations, or specialized prompt engineering).

Pay range and compensation package

115-145K base, plus relocation, bonus, and full benefits.