
Principal Embedded Software Engineer
- Saffron Walden, Essex Braintree, Essex
- £75,000 per year
- Permanent
- Full-time
Salary: Circa £75k
Type: Permanent | Hands-on Technical + LeadershipOther: No Visa sponsorship availableThe Opportunity
This is a hands-on role combining software development with team leadership. You'll lead a small, close-knit sub-team within a larger multidisciplinary software group, contributing to the design and delivery of embedded systems for a range of real-world applications-from radar and sensing technologies to IoT devices and advanced communication systems.Projects span sectors such as defence, healthcare, and industrial innovation, blending embedded software, electronics, FPGA, cloud, and system-level engineering.As a Lead Software Engineer, your responsibilities will include:
- Line management and mentoring for 3-5 engineers, supporting career development, conducting performance reviews, and assisting with resource planning.
- Technical leadership within multi-disciplinary project teams, including architecture decisions and code contributions.
- Process and practice development across the team, helping shape coding standards, development methodologies, and future technology direction.
You'll be a capable and well-rounded embedded software engineer with a natural inclination to guide others. Our ideal candidate brings:
- Strong experience in embedded software development, ideally across environments such as bare metal, RTOS, or embedded Linux.
- Technical depth in areas such as device drivers, DSP, communications protocols, algorithm implementation, or working close to hardware.
- Some leadership exposure-this could be through running small project teams, mentoring, or handling performance reviews.
- Confidence in communicating technical ideas, presenting to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and producing well-reasoned project estimates.
- Ideally, experience in a consultancy or project-based engineering environment, comfortable balancing technical excellence with time and budget constraints.