Embedded Software Engineer 4 – Principal – Senior

Who are we?

The Toro Company is a Minnesota-based organization with a rich history dating back to 1914. We pride ourselves on providing world-class equipment that helps maintain and beautify environments - from residential lawns and gardens to renowned venues such as St. Andrews Links in Scotland and Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With over 100 years of operation and an average employee tenure of 15 years, come discover why The Toro Company is a great place to build your career.

Job Purpose:

As a Senior / Principal Embedded Software Engineer, you will provide hands-on technical leadership for embedded software and telematics solutions used across Toro equipment and connected products. You will own or influence system and software architecture, lead complex initiatives from requirements through production release, establish reusable technical approaches, and help elevate embedded software practices across the organization.

What Will You Do?

Architecture and Technical Direction

• Own or provide technical direction for embedded software and firmware architecture across products, subsystems, or reusable platforms.
• Define software partitioning, interfaces, hardware abstraction layers, board support packages, device drivers, middleware, bootloaders, diagnostics, communications, and firmware update strategies.
• Lead technical trade studies involving performance, memory, processing capacity, power, cost, cybersecurity, reliability, maintainability, and time to market.
• Establish reusable components, architecture patterns, coding practices, and design standards that scale across product families.
• Review system requirements, electrical schematics, component data sheets, and hardware-software interfaces; document decisions, assumptions, risks, and alternatives.

Hands-On Product Development

• Design, implement, review, debug, integrate, and validate production embedded software in C and C++ for microcontroller, RTOS, bare-metal, or embedded Linux environments.
• Lead board bring-up, device-driver development, hardware-software integration, and troubleshooting using JTAG/SWD debuggers, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and diagnostic tools.
• Develop and support machine-network and connected-device capabilities using technologies such as CAN, SPI, I2C, UART/RS232, GPIO, ADC, PWM, cellular, GNSS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, TCP/IP, or MQTT, as applicable.
• Develop prototypes and technical demonstrations to reduce uncertainty, evaluate concepts, and verify compliance with system requirements.
• Provide technical leadership for firmware releases, deployment, field diagnostics, recovery, and product-support investigations.

Software Lifecycle, Quality, Safety, and Cybersecurity

• Lead activities across requirements analysis, architecture, detailed design, implementation, code review, unit testing, integration, system verification, release, deployment, and maintenance.
• Establish or improve automated build and test practices, including static analysis, code coverage, unit testing, integration testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, regression testing, and configuration management.
• Define release-readiness criteria and lead root-cause analysis for laboratory, production, supplier, and field issues.
• Support product safety, functional safety, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance activities, including risk assessment, threat analysis, requirements traceability, design reviews, and verification planning.
• Apply secure-development practices such as secure boot, authenticated firmware updates, cryptography, key management, threat modeling, rollback and recovery, and third-party software evaluation when required by the product.

Project and Cross-Functional Leadership

• Lead technically complex projects involving embedded software, electronics, systems, validation, manufacturing, suppliers, product management, cloud, mobile, and cybersecurity teams.
• Identify technical risks early, define mitigation plans, and communicate status, trade-offs, and recommendations to engineering and product leadership.
• Influence technical direction without relying on direct authority and help teams resolve ambiguous, cross-product, or cross-functional problems.
• Mentor engineers, lead architecture and design reviews, provide direction to contractors or consultants, and strengthen the technical capability of the broader team.
• Improve the embedded software development process in alignment with Toro's Proven Development Process, applicable standards, and lessons learned.

What Do You Need?

Candidates may be considered at the Engineer III or Engineer IV level based on experience, demonstrated technical scope, and leadership capability.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related technical field.
• Engineer III / Senior consideration: typically 5 or more years of relevant embedded software development experience.
• Engineer IV / Principal consideration: typically 9 or more years of relevant embedded software experience, including demonstrated architecture ownership and technical leadership.
• A master's degree in a related field may substitute for a portion of the experience requirement in accordance with company guidelines.

Required Technical and Leadership Capabilities

• Advanced proficiency in embedded C and C++ and experience developing production firmware for 16-bit or 32-bit microcontrollers, processors, or systems on chip.
• Experience with real-time operating systems or bare-metal systems, including interrupts, concurrency, synchronization, scheduling, timing, memory constraints, and real-time behavior.
• Experience with device drivers and interfaces such as CAN, SPI, I2C, UART/RS232, GPIO, ADC, PWM, timers, and watchdogs.
• Ability to diagnose hardware-software interaction using debuggers, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, logs, profiling tools, and structured root-cause analysis.
• Experience with software requirements, architecture, design reviews, peer code review, version control, build automation, test automation, and release management.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically complex work, make well-reasoned engineering decisions, communicate risk and trade-offs, and mentor other engineers.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively across disciplines, organizations, locations, and time zones.
• Strong judgment, personal and professional integrity, process orientation, and a commitment to quality, safety, continuous improvement, and results.

What Makes You Stand Out?

• Embedded Linux experience, including board support packages, SafeRTOS, Yocto, device drivers, or Qt/C++ user-interface development.
• Experience with telematics, IoT, connected equipment, device-to-cloud integration, cellular communications, GNSS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, TCP/IP, MQTT, telemetry data models, or remote device management.
• Experience with embedded cybersecurity, secure boot, signed or authenticated updates, cryptography, key management, threat modeling, software bills of materials, or secure coding standards.
• Experience with functional-safety or safety-related development methods and standards, such as ISO 13849 or IEC 61508 concepts.
• Experience with MISRA C/C++, static-analysis tools, continuous integration, automated regression testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, or requirements traceability tools.
• Python, C#, shell scripting, or other skills used for test automation, diagnostic tooling, data analysis, or engineering productivity.
• Experience developing software for mobile equipment, off-highway vehicles, industrial controls, robotics, autonomous systems, or other long-lifecycle products.

What Can We Give You?

At The Toro Company, we are always working to make sure our employees know just how valued they are. In addition to a competitive salary, an affordable and top tier medical/dental/vision plan, 401k, and many other great benefits - The Toro company offers employees at our Bloomington, MN

HQ location a variety of perks, including:  

• Dress for your day - We know you're more productive when you're comfortable, which is why TTC employees are encouraged to take advantage of our casual, corporate environment.  

• Location – Conveniently located near both St. Paul and Minneapolis, we are centrally located for most commuters!  

• Food - Take advantage of our onsite café, which serves both breakfast and lunch. With a Caribou Coffee attached, you can grab a snack and a coffee at any time during your day.  

• Wellness - The Toro Company’s HQ offers complimentary use of our onsite fitness facility to employees. In addition to physical wellbeing, TTC offers a variety of mental health and financial health resources to all employees.  

• Volunteerism - The Toro Company is proud to provide employees 20 hours of paid time to volunteer in the community.  

• Summer Hours – Enjoy a flexible schedule during the summer! By working a little more during the first few days of the week, TTC employees at our Bloomington HQ are able to start their weekends early and leave by noon on Friday.  
• Competitive Salary – The pay range takes into account skills, experience, education, and location. It is not common to be hired at or near the top of the range; compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the annual pay range is between ​$96,900-139,200. Cash compensation is one piece of our competitive total rewards package. You may be eligible to participate in an incentive program, which rewards employees based on individual and organizational performance. Eligibility and award amounts are determined by company policy and performance metrics. If you need to, you can access your pay early with the dailypay app.  

At The Toro Company, we are committed to fostering a secure and trustworthy recruitment experience for our applicants. Recruitment fraud is a growing concern for job seekers, so please be aware that throughout our recruitment process, you’ll never be required to pay any fees or disclose personal financial details when applying to TTC opportunities. All legitimate job opportunities must be applied for directly through our official careers page at jobs.thetorocompany.com or via Workday, our applicant tracking system. 

The Toro Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants based on merit and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, military service, or other non-merit factors. We are committed to creating a welcoming environment for all employees.

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