Embedded Software Lead

Who we are: Glydways is reimagining what public transit can be. We believe that mobility is the gateway to opportunity—connecting people to housing, education, employment, commerce, and care. By making transportation more accessible, affordable, and sustainable, we empower communities to thrive and unlock economic and social prosperity. Our mission is to revolutionize transit with a solution that delivers high capacity, exceptional user experiences, unmatched affordability, and minimal environmental impact. The Glydways system is a groundbreaking network of carbon-neutral, interconnected transit pathways powered by standardized autonomous vehicles on dedicated roadways. Operating 24/7 with on-demand access, it offers personalized and efficient mobility—without the burden of heavy upfront infrastructure costs or ongoing taxpayer subsidies. With Glydways, we’re building more than a transportation system; we’re creating a future where everyone, everywhere, has the freedom to move. Meet the team: The Embedded Software team is where the vehicle comes to life. We write and load the firmware that turns raw hardware: sensor kits, custom boards, and main compute, into a reliable, safety-critical machine. Because our software touches nearly every subsystem, we collaborate with engineers from across the company and get hands-on with the newest hardware in the building. As Embedded Software Team Lead, you will lead the engineers responsible for the vehicle’s low-level software platform. You will set technical direction, create the conditions for the team to deliver reliably, and remain close enough to the code and hardware to make sound engineering decisions. You will help take embedded systems from board bring-up and prototype development through integration, validation, and production deployment. This is firmware that carries real passengers. Reliability is a safety requirement, not just a performance goal, and the code your team ships is part of the safety case. Roles & Responsibilities: Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing embedded software team, including hiring, onboarding, feedback, and career development. Set team priorities, execution plans, and delivery milestones while creating a clear, effective remote operating rhythm. Define and evolve embedded software architecture across MCUs, sensors, custom boards, and main compute. Provide hands-on technical leadership for real-time behavior, fault handling, diagnostics, performance, and maintainability. Partner with systems, electrical, autonomy, platform, test, and vehicle-integration teams to resolve dependencies and tradeoffs. Guide the design, bring-up, integration, and validation of production firmware for safety-critical vehicle systems. Establish strong practices for code review, automated testing, release readiness, debugging, and safe multi-device deployment. Represent embedded software in architecture reviews, safety activities, planning, and vehicle-readiness decisions. Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: Experience leading an embedded software team or serving as a technical lead responsible for execution, engineering quality, and team growth. Strong mentoring, delegation, communication, and decision-making skills in a remote, cross-functional environment. A pragmatic leadership style that combines technical depth with scalable processes and a team-oriented approach. Expert-level C and/or C++ experience developing production embedded systems. Experience with RTOS or embedded Linux environments, MCU bootloaders, device drivers, and board or SoC bring-up. Strong understanding of embedded communications, including SPI, UART, I2C, CAN, TCP, and UDP. Experience optimizing resource-constrained systems and building automated unit, integration, and hardware/software tests. Solid command of the embedded software life cycle, including version control, code review, CI, release management, and automated testing. Experience developing safety-critical, mission-critical, or highly reliable systems, with familiarity with ISO 26262, EN 50716 or comparable processes. A systems mindset focused on observability, diagnosability, graceful failure, and evidence-based release decisions. Nice to Have: Experience in automotive, transit, aerospace, medical, industrial, robotics, or other safety-critical domains. Experience with automotive-grade safety MCUs, ideally the NXP S32K3 family or comparable lockstep/ASIL-rated devices such as Infineon AURIX or TI TMS570. Familiarity with kernel internals and low-level operating-system concepts. Experience with deterministic timing and networking, including NTP, PTP, or time-sensitive networking. Experience with CAN tooling and DBC-based workflows. Comfort using electronics test equipment such as multimeters, oscilloscopes, and power supplies. Experience supporting software through vehicle integration, commissioning, or field operations. Typical Experience: Typically 8+ years developing embedded software for production systems, including meaningful experience with safety-critical or highly reliable platforms. Experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers; formal people-management experience is valuable, but we also welcome strong technical leaders ready to take their next step into team leadership. * If you’re excited about this work but don’t check every box, we’d still love to hear from you. We know the best candidates don’t always match every line of a job description. Glydways provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.