Manager, Embedded Software Engineering

MANAGER, EMBEDDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING Location: Antwerp or Amsterdam Experience: 5+ years in embedded software development, including 2+ years managing embedded or firmware engineers LEAD THE FIRMWARE THAT MAKES OUR EARWEAR SMARTER Loop’s portfolio is growing across connected and standalone products. Behind every one of them is firmware that has to work flawlessly, from the first board bring-up to mass production and every update after that. As our Manager, Embedded Software Engineering, you’ll lead the team that makes that happen. You’ll own how firmware gets engineered across Loop’s products, from development and launch through sustaining releases in the field. That includes how the team works: as AI capability moves, you’ll change how the whole team designs and verifies firmware, and set the standard for how AI is used. This role is for someone who is equally comfortable growing engineers and challenging a firmware design on its merits. You’ll set the standard, build the team, and make sure what we commit to actually ships, on time and at quality. THE ROLE You’ll lead embedded software across Loop’s connected and standalone products, owning predictable delivery, engineering quality, and team capability. You’ll combine technical credibility with people leadership. Product defines what we build, Programme Management defines when it lands, and you define how it’s engineered. That includes the engineering practices of the discipline. You’ll set coding and review standards, and you’ll also keep reshaping how the team designs, develops, and verifies firmware as AI tools mature. Detailed architecture and subsystem design authority stay with our senior engineers, and part of your job is growing them into that technical leadership. While the team is small, you’ll stay hands-on where it matters. As the team grows, you’ll delegate more, while making sure you never become the critical-path dependency. What you’ll do - Lead, coach, and develop a team of embedded software engineers, setting clear level-referenced expectations and addressing performance early. - Plan workforce, capacity, tooling, rigs, fixtures, and lab resources to meet commitments, managing priorities and costs within Loop’s approval policy. - Own firmware delivery across development and sustaining work, including bring-up, manufacturing and test firmware, launch readiness, field issues, security updates, and sustaining releases. - Ensure clear ownership and acceptance evidence for factory firmware, flashing, provisioning, and version compatibility. - Estimate and resource work, surface risk early, and own release readiness decisions, including rollout, pause, and rollback. - Maintain strong engineering standards across coding, review, testing, CI, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), security, and traceability, working within Loop’s Requirements and Risk Management Frameworks. - Set the team’s standard for how AI is used in firmware development and verification, with clear guardrails for quality, security, and traceability in a hardware-dependent environment. - Represent embedded software in programme, design, build-readiness, and sustaining forums, owning firmware estimates, dependencies, risks, and readiness judgement. - Drive cross-system decisions with Engineering, Quality, Industrialisation, suppliers, silicon vendors, and manufacturing partners. - Lead architecture and design reviews that reach a conclusion on trade-offs, and translate roadmap objectives into clear technical direction. YOU WON’T - Commit to milestones without the resourcing and risk picture to back them up. - Let a slip surface on the milestone date instead of before it. - Take design authority away from the senior engineers who own it. - Become the bottleneck your team has to wait on. - Treat manufacturing and test firmware as an afterthought. - Let a field defect sit without a severity, a root cause, and a decision. - Leave performance conversations for later. - Stay quiet in a cross-functional forum when firmware has a risk to raise. HOW YOU’LL SUCCEED You deliver what you commit to. Firmware milestones land within the agreed window, and when something does slip, people hear it from you early. Manufacturing and test firmware is locked ahead of every design-validation build and stays that way. Critical defects don’t reach production, and every issue reported from the field gets triaged within a sprint with a clear decision to fix or accept it. Your team gets stronger with you. Every critical subsystem has a second engineer who knows it, every engineer has a development plan, and new joiners have their first contribution reviewed and merged within four weeks. People want to stay and grow here. The way the team engineers keeps moving too. As AI capability develops, you change how the whole team designs and verifies firmware, and the standard you set holds AI output to the same review, test, and traceability bar as everything else. You reason from first principles, work through complex firmware and system issues, and drive cross-functional decisions to a conclusion. You also stay hands-on where it counts, delegate more as the team grows, and review that balance openly along the way. WHAT YOU’LL BRING - 5+ years of experience developing embedded software, including at least one connected consumer product taken through to mass production. - 2+ years managing embedded or firmware engineers (3+ preferred), including responsibility for feedback, development, and performance. - Experience owning firmware delivery against a hardware programme schedule, including the manufacturing and test firmware production depends on. - Deep expertise in embedded C/C++, RTOS, Bluetooth and wireless connectivity, microcontroller peripherals, low-power design, and firmware architecture. - Strong debugging skills and hands-on experience with CI and HIL for hardware-dependent delivery. - A clear point of view on how AI is changing embedded development and verification, and experience leading a team through a change in how it works. - Enough knowledge of DSP and on-device machine learning to resource and review that work credibly. - The ability to turn objectives into practical delivery and resource plans, balancing people, capacity, cost, and commitments. - Clear, direct communication of firmware risks and recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders. Nice to have - Experience with hearables, audio, or body-worn wearables. - Hands-on DSP or on-device machine learning experience. - Experience with product security or regulatory compliance for connected consumer devices. LOOP ISN’T FOR EVERYONE. WE MIGHT NOT BE A MATCH IF YOU: - Prefer managing people without staying close to the technology. - Prefer writing code without taking responsibility for a team. - Feel uncomfortable owning a release decision, including the call to pause or roll back. - Wait for the programme schedule to tell you about firmware risk. - Treat quality and traceability as paperwork rather than part of the product. - Avoid hard conversations about performance or priorities. - Prefer working in your own lane over driving decisions across hardware, quality, and manufacturing. STILL LISTENING? Good. We’re not looking for someone to keep firmware ticking over. We’re looking for someone who can build a team and an engineering standard that take Loop’s connected products from first prototype to millions of ears, and keep them working long after launch. Loopers step in, speak up, and go for more. More firsts. More growth. More: “I can’t believe we did that.” If that sounds like you, press that beautiful apply button and let’s talk. Hiring process - Application Window: 13 October – 6 November - Recruiter Screens: 19 October – 9 November - Hiring Manager Interviews: 2 November – 13 November - Technical & Leadership Case Interviews: 16 November – 20 November - Bar raiser interviews: 23 November – 27 November - Target Start Date: 4 January 2027