R&D Platform Manager / Hardware Platform Team Lead

Company / Role Overview

Our client is an expert in the field of building ANPR cameras for multiple purposes, ranging from civil security, speed enforcement and car park applications, amongst other use-cases, both for the UK and international markets.

The Hardware Platform team is a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of Electrical, Mechanical, Firmware and Embedded Engineers. They are responsible for delivering custom hardware platforms in-line with product/customer requirements. The team has ownership over the end-to-end design of hardware, encompassing electrical design to operating system and board support packages.

You will work in close collaboration with the Software, Algorithms/ML and Systems team within R&D. Together, these teams form a small group of ~20 Engineers responsible for all aspects related to ANPR cameras, from their conception to the whole software and algorithms they run. The team also works in close partnership with Product Management, Procurement and Manufacturing to ensure overall system delivery.

About You

Our client is looking for a skilled R&D Platform Manager / Hardware Platform Team Lead to lead the Hardware Platform team working on camera products. You will have team leadership and line management responsibilities but will also be an expert in embedded Linux and contribute a portion of your time to technical contributions. The technical contributions will range from low-level device driver development to managing the platform OS and board support package of the company's Linux distributions.

As the R&D Platform Manager / Hardware Platform Team Lead, you will be responsible for leading a team of experienced Engineers. You will work closely with Senior Management, Product and Project Management to define product roadmaps and to allocate resources. You will be responsible for managing the team's priorities and for ensuring that work is delivered on schedule.

From the technical side, you will use your expertise to manage the overall OS and board support package of the company's hardware platforms. You will work on hardware bring-up and all work related to the embedded Linux side. This includes boot chain development, Linux kernel hacking, device driver development, Linux distribution building and more.

Experience Required

Strong management and leadership skills, preferably with at least two years of experience in leading and managing a team
Can take ownership of the full feature life cycle: understand the requirements, design a solution that can be integrated into the product and deliver it (design, implement and test) in collaboration with the team
Can work autonomously and as a team player, contributing towards overall product development in line with project timelines whilst being eager to explore novel solutions and innovate

Key Responsibilities

Ability to work with key business stakeholders to define roadmaps and plan work for the team
Extensive experience programming in C/C++ and shell scripting knowledge
Experience working with Linux kernel device drivers (V4L2, I2C, SPI, UART etc.), ranging from developing drivers from scratch, porting drivers and debugging issues in upstream drivers
Experience developing device trees and pinmux configurations
Extensive experience building and developing custom Linux distributions using Yocto
Knowledge of authoring/maintaining meta layers, developing recipes and bbclasses
Experience developing systems using Buildroot
Experience with core Linux system components such as process management, logging, networking, graphics stack etc.
Knowledge of the early-stage boot process, working with UEFI, U-Boot and initrd scripts
Experience in system bring-up and hardware integration
Extensive experience with Linux environments and embedded Linux
Basic electronics knowledge; able to navigate through datasheets and schematics
Comfortable liaising with suppliers and other 3rd parties

Skills Required

Knowledge of networking hardware; 4G/5G modems, WIFI 5/6 and other RF technologies
Experience working with network software stacks; ModemManager, Network Manager, IPsec, VPN's, IPTables etc.
Experience working with A/B symmetric update processes
Experience working with Python
Experience with CI/CD and automated testing
Experience developing software/firmware for microcontrollers and RTOS familiarity
Experience using Atlassian suite of products such as Jira and Confluence
Knowledge of software version control using tools such as Git and SVN