Senior Embedded Software Tech Lead (Safety-Critical)

Wabtec; Pretoria; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Wabtec in Pretoria leads the engineering team delivering collision avoidance, proximity detection, and driver monitoring systems for mining and heavy industries. You’ll guide software and firmware across hardware interfaces, mentor engineers, and drive standards to ensure safety, performance, and reliability.

You will own architecture decisions, manage the software backlog, and contribute hands-on development using Python and C++.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Computer Science, or related field; equivalent experience considered.
• 7+ years of professional software development experience.
• 2+ years in a Technical Lead / Senior Engineer role.
• Residence and work eligibility in South Africa.

Responsibilities

• Define software architecture, standards, and best practices across software and firmware.
• Own software backlog: planning, prioritization, estimation, task assignment.
• Design, develop, review, and maintain production software in Python and C++.
• Update software/firmware interfacing with hardware platforms and sensors.
• Provide leadership for machine vision development: training, evaluation, deployment.
• Lead root-cause investigations for complex integration issues.
• Drive CI/CD improvements and release management processes.
• Mentor engineers; conduct code reviews; promote quality and maintainability.
• Support recruiting and align activities with safety, quality, and regulatory requirements.
• Occasionally travel to customer sites for deployment and troubleshooting.

Skills

Python

C++

Hardware interfacing

Linux ARM

CI/CD

Git

Machine vision

Debugging

Troubleshooting

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering / related

Tools

Yocto

Buildroot

GitLab CI/CD

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Wabtec in Pretoria leads the engineering team delivering collision avoidance, proximity detection, and driver monitoring systems for mining and heavy industries. You’ll guide software and firmware across hardware interfaces, mentor engineers, and drive standards to ensure safety, performance, and reliability.

You will own architecture decisions, manage the software backlog, and contribute hands-on development using Python and C++.