Director of Embedded Software & FPGA Engineering

Location: Golden, Colorado, United States; workplace: on-site.

Company

hirify.global provides standardized satellite platforms and mission infrastructure that give commercial, defense, and government customers reliable access to orbit, including onboard AI and compute capabilities.

What you will do

• Own the embedded software and FPGA roadmap and technical direction across satellite platforms.
• Define hardware-abstraction architectures and interfaces across FPGA, embedded software, onboard software, and operational systems.
• Lead architecture, design reviews, code quality, testing, verification, documentation, and operational readiness standards.
• Build engineering foundations for Linux, Yocto/OpenEmbedded, CI/CD, reproducible builds, and secure or sovereign environments.
• Guide technology choices involving hypervisors, RISC-V, Rust, and other platform technologies.
• Lead geographically distributed teams through hiring, mentorship, performance management, and technical representation with customers, partners, and government or defense stakeholders.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in embedded systems, FPGA, firmware, or related engineering delivering mission-critical hardware or software.
• Experience leading and managing technical teams, including geographically distributed teams.
• Deep experience with FPGA design, embedded C/C++, real-time systems, and hardware-software integration.
• Strong Linux kernel, embedded Linux, Yocto/OpenEmbedded, CI/CD, automated testing, and reproducible-release experience.
• Experience with secure and sovereign environments, including trust boundaries, secure boot, signing, and controlled dependencies.
• Experience with hypervisors, RISC-V, ARM, and Rust development environments, plus strong technical decision-making across reliability, performance, security, schedule, and technology evolution.

Nice to have

• Spacecraft avionics, command and data handling, payload interfaces, satellite flight systems, or New Space experience.
• Radiation-tolerant or radiation-hardened design and knowledge of the space environment.
• Experience with RTEMS, FreeRTOS, VxWorks, high-speed interfaces, ARM embedded systems, U-Boot, or ARM Trusted Firmware.
• Upstream Linux, kernel modules, platform drivers, hypervisor isolation, virtualized I/O, or mixed-criticality systems experience.
• Onboard AI/ML compute, edge-processing hardware, or government and defense assurance programs.

Culture & Benefits

• Company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents.
• FSA and HSA accounts with an employer HSA contribution, plus employer-paid life and disability insurance.
• Flexible time off, sick leave, 12 paid holidays, paid parental leave, and fertility and family-forming benefits.
• 401(k) plan, equity options, catered lunches, snacks, and social events.
• International collaboration with teams in France and relocation assistance when applicable.