Senior Embedded Software Engineer Job Description
Objectives:
Do you want to serve a higher purpose?
Are you looking for a career and not just another job?
The people at Industrial Scientific are making a difference. We believe that great people working with great tools in a supportive environment will deliver better products and services and do their best work for our customers. Our leaders understand the critical elements of breakthrough performance: bringing out the best in people; creating a climate of trust, openness and high performance; fostering candor and initiative; and treating people fairly and with dignity. Industrial Scientific provides the environment, leadership, and support that enable employees to exceed their career expectations.
Industrial Scientific’s product development team includes skilled engineers, designers and technicians in the disciplines of electrical, mechanical, and firmware engineering. Third-party design partners are used (both locally and abroad) to augment our in-house team or to provide specific expertise. For the most part, we build what we design – often in our modern manufacturing factory right here in Western Pennsylvania.
We design and develop a wide variety of world-class gas detection instruments, sensors, accessories, and infrastructure for worker connectivity and remote management. Our designs include the latest mixed-signal embedded computing technology, mechanical packaging, miniaturization, and compelling user interfaces. We partner with a dedicated in-house application software team to provide feature-rich web-based applications that help our customers keep their workers safe.
This Senior Embedded Software Engineer position provides technical leadership for firmware development throughout the New Product Development lifecycle for Industrial Scientific gas detection products. The role is intended for an experienced engineer who owns subsystem firmware architecture, drives complex embedded software design and implementation, ensures strong requirements traceability, and delivers highly reliable, scalable firmware for safety-critical applications.
This position leads firmware design activities from concept through production and may also support Enhancement & Sustaining projects for ISC legacy products. The Senior Engineer works independently with minimal oversight, collaborates closely with electrical, mechanical, quality assurance, manufacturing, product management, and external development teams, and makes informed technical tradeoffs that balance delivery, quality, cost, maintainability, and customer impact.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
The duties may include, but are not limited to:
- Own firmware architecture for subsystems, including module partitioning, interfaces, and data and control flows
- Define firmware requirements and maintain strong traceability to system requirements, design outputs, and test cases
- Design, develop, and lead implementation of complex drivers, middleware, and real-time embedded systems with reliability, scalability, and maintainability in mind
- Define and enforce firmware design patterns, coding standards, code review practices, and technical decision-making approaches across projects
- Test firmware and hardware integration independently, debug integration issues, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure successful product outcomes
- Drive root cause analysis and closure of complex system issues involving timing, concurrency, resource constraints, reliability, and performance
- Optimize system performance, power consumption, memory usage, and boot time based on product and customer requirements
- Develop and improve firmware development processes, including CI/CD practices, code quality metrics, static analysis, automated testing, and test coverage
- Mentor engineers, provide technical direction across multiple projects, and lead small initiatives within defined scope
- Communicate architecture, risks, tradeoffs, and technical recommendations clearly across roles, functions, and project teams
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor of Science/BE/B. Tech degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electronics Engineering or a related technical discipline from an accredited college or university
- Senior-level experience(minimum 8 years) developing embedded firmware for real-time, resource-constrained, or safety-critical systems
- Demonstrated proficiency in C and embedded software design for production hardware platforms
- Experience owning subsystem firmware architecture, including module decomposition, interfaces, state behavior, and data and control flows
- Experience developing and debugging embedded drivers and interfaces such as I2C, SPI, UART, ADC, PWM, sensors, and low-level hardware abstractions
- Ability to read electrical schematics, understand hardware behavior, and independently test firmware and hardware integration
- Strong analytical and debugging skills for complex embedded issues involving timing, concurrency, memory, power, boot, and system-level interactions
- Experience defining firmware requirements and linking implementation and test coverage to system requirements
- Experience with firmware development practices such as CI/CD, static analysis, code review, code quality metrics, unit testing, and automated test coverage
- Ability to work independently with minimal oversight while communicating clearly with engineering, product, quality, manufacturing, and project stakeholders
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience designing firmware for low-power handheld, portable, or battery-powered devices
- Experience optimizing embedded systems for power consumption, boot time, memory utilization, responsiveness, and long-term reliability
- Experience with wireless technologies such as Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi, LTE, LoRa, or similar communication protocols
- Experience leading firmware architecture or technical design decisions across multiple projects or shared capabilities
- Understanding of Stage-Gate development processes and disciplined product development practices
- Experience supporting legacy product upgrades, sustaining engineering, customization projects, or platform-level reuse
- Experience working with safety-critical, highly reliable, regulated, or mission-critical embedded applications
Soft Skills:
- Understands business priorities and customer impact and makes informed tradeoffs between delivery, quality, cost, and maintainability
- Capable of mentoring junior engineers and provides practical technical guidance that strengthens team capability
- Leads small initiatives and drives technical decisions within defined scope while aligning with broader architecture and product goals
- Solves complex problems within existing architectures and designs practical solutions when requirements are incomplete or ambiguous
- Creates multi-team impact through ownership of subsystems, reusable components, or core firmware capabilities
- Works independently with minimal oversight and communicates clearly across roles, functions, and technical backgrounds
Fortive Corporation Overview
Fortive's essential technology makes the world safer and more productive. We accelerate transformation in high-impact fields like workplace safety, build environments, and healthcare.
We are a global industrial technology innovator with a startup spirit. Our forward-looking companies lead the way in healthcare sterilization, industrial safety, predictive maintenance, and other mission-critical solutions. We're a force for progress, working alongside our customers and partners to solve challenges on a global scale, from workplace safety in the most demanding conditions to advanced technologies that help providers focus on exceptional patient care.
We are a diverse team of 10,000 strong, united by a dynamic, inclusive culture and energized by limitless learning and growth. We use the proven Fortive Business System (FBS) to accelerate our positive impact.
At Fortive, we believe in you. We believe in your potential, your ability to learn, grow, and make a difference.
At Fortive, we believe in us. We believe in the power of people working together to solve problems no one could solve alone.
At Fortive, we believe in growth. We're honest about what's working and what isn't, and we never stop improving and innovating.
Fortive: For you, for us, for growth.
About Industrial Scientific
Industrial Scientific designs and manufactures gas detection products and solutions that protect workers from hazardous conditions around the world. Since our beginnings in 1985, we have pioneered numerous technologies, including the first 3-gas detector, 6-gas detector, wireless gas detector, and even the first gas detector to be included on a NASA space shuttle. Today, we continue to innovate and expand our hardware and software offerings to equip the connected workers of the future. Our latest solutions make it possible to see and respond to hazards in real time, bringing us one step closer to our vision of ending death on the job by 2050.
We Are an Equal Opportunity Employer. Fortive Corporation and all Fortive Companies are proud to be equal opportunity employers. We value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or other characteristics protected by law. Fortive and all Fortive Companies are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. Individuals who need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment application process, please contact us at [email protected].
Bonus or Equity
This position is also eligible for bonus as part of the total compensation package.
