Software Team Lead @ Instrumental

Manufacturing output is half of Gross World Product, but 20% of its resources are spent on scrap, rework, and mistakes. Our technology accelerates how the world’s best brands bring new products to market by collecting unique data from assembly lines and feeding it to AI-powered software tools to find and fix manufacturing issues. Our mission is to empower teams to build better products, in less time, with less waste. Brands like Bose, Cisco, and SolarEdge use our technology to optimize their manufacturing processes and deliver superior products in less time.

Our new Software Team Lead will be a player-coach for a team of experienced edge-device software engineers. Our edge devices are mission-critical for our manufacturing customers. They must be highly fault-tolerant to ensure no interruptions to the manufacturing line. The high uptime requirements from our customers means that the Edge Computing team owns the entire software stack for a fleet of worldwide computers and sensors that capture critical manufacturing data – including an operator-facing application (TypeScript, Node.js), a custom operating system (Linux-based), and the networking and infrastructure to support the fleet.

In addition to working on the technical details with your team, you’ll also partner with other cross-functional leaders on our Engineering, Product, and Operations teams to unlock new manufacturing use cases and industries, simplify device provisioning and updates, and ensure that our systems are robust, reliable, and secure.

What You Will Do:

People Management: 50% of your time will be helping our software engineers prioritize, be productive, and grow in their technical mastery and careers.
Hands-on Engineering: 50% of your time will be engineering work, including periodic production support to resolve customer issues.
Edge Computing Roadmap Execution: Partner with the Edge Compute, Product, and R&D teams to plan and execute against the Edge Computing roadmap.
Thought Leadership: Represent our Edge Computing software function internally to our teams and leadership and externally to our customers and partners.
Continuous Process Improvement: As an engineering manager, you’ll be responsible for monitoring and continuously improving the team’s velocity, quality, and value delivered to customers.

We’d Love to Chat if You Have:

Track record of building and shipping production software systems for 5+ years. You’re an engineer and a problem solver at the core.
1+ year of managing people, including both early-career and seasoned engineers.
5+ years leading teams on both customer-facing and technical initiatives. We’re looking for candidates that can demonstrate technical mastery but also empower their teams to innovate.
A demonstrated passion for understanding and solving customer problems in prior roles – you understand customer use cases and requirements to ensure what you deliver has maximum impact.
You can effectively communicate with diverse audiences, including engineers, product, executives, customers, etc.
Proficiency in one or more systems programming languages, C, C++, Rust, etc., and a web stack.
Proficiency in one or more scripting languages: Python, Bash, etc.
Experience developing Linux systems and the associated tools: Buildroot, Yocto, Docker, etc.

Bonus Points:

Support and maintenance of buildroot-based operating system
Network protocols and common topologies
System, application, or network security
OTA updates of Linux devices
Hardware or manufacturing
Application development using Docker, Node.js and C++ native modules, SQLite, GraphQL, and Angular.

This role requires authorization to access information that is subject to U.S. export control restrictions.

We’re a growing team that works collaboratively, supports each other, and is energized by having impact. We value passion and the ability to learn – you’re encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn’t match the job description precisely!

The following is a representative annual base salary range for this position within the Bay Area: $203-217k. Job level and salary opportunities are evaluated through our interview process. Instrumental offers a highly-rated variety of benefits, including health, vision, dental, commuter plans, and parental leave.

Compensation Overview

What You Will Do:

We’d Love to Chat if You Have:

Bonus Points:

6 month growth

1 year growth

2 year growth