Principal Software Engineer

ZipRecruiter; Saffron Walden; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company is seeking a Lead Embedded Software Engineer for a hands-on role that includes both software development and team leadership. This position involves managing a small sub-team and contributing to diverse projects in sectors like defence and healthcare. Ideal candidates will have strong embedded software experience and some leadership exposure, alongside excellent communication skills.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in embedded software development—bare metal, RTOS, or embedded Linux.
• Some leadership exposure through project teams or mentoring.
• Confidence in communicating technical ideas to stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Line management and mentoring for 3–5 engineers.
• Technical leadership within multi-disciplinary project teams.
• Process and practice development across the team.

Skills

Embedded software development

Device drivers

DSP

Communications protocols

Algorithm implementation

Technical communication

Job description

Job Description

Lead / Staff Embedded Software Engineer

Location: Commute from Cambridge, Saffron Walden, Newmarket, Braintree, Hitchen, Harlow, St Neots, Bury St Edmunds, Chelmsford (Hybrid, 3 days onsite)

Type: Permanent | Hands-on Technical + Leadership

Other: No Visa sponsorship

Summary:

This position offers a roughly 80/20 split between hands-on embedded software development and leadership responsibilities, supporting a small team of 3–5 specialist software engineers. Projects are varied—ranging from short 2-day sprints to full-scale 2-year development programmes—across a wide range of industries.

It's an excellent fit for someone with solid embedded software experience and some exposure to leadership—whether direct or informal—who’s ready to take the next step. A broader understanding of cloud or application-level development is also useful, given the of work.

The 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.

What We’re Looking For

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.