Lead Embedded Software Engineer
Location: Ealing Area - With Hybrid Working from Home
Salary: Up to £80,000 + Extensive Benefits
The Role
KO2's client is looking for a Lead Embedded Software Engineer to drive the development of robust, scalable embedded software solutions for next-generation electric products. This role combines hands-on technical delivery with small-team leadership, offering the opportunity to influence architecture, mentor engineers, and shape the future direction of embedded platforms.
You will play a key role across the full product lifecycle - from early-stage prototyping and system design through to production, manufacturing, and long-term product support - while helping build engineering best practices and delivery capability within the team.
Key Responsibilities
Lead the design and development of high-quality embedded software that is efficient, maintainable, scalable, and production-ready
Provide technical leadership to a small embedded software team, supporting task planning, technical direction, mentoring, and code reviews
Collaborate closely with hardware, systems, and manufacturing teams to support board bring-up, debugging, integration, and system validation
Own key architectural decisions, helping define software frameworks, coding standards, development processes, and long-term platform strategy
Design, implement, test, and maintain embedded software for internally developed electric systems and connected devices
Investigate and resolve complex real-time issues relating to timing, performance, reliability, and signal integrity
Support continuous improvement initiatives across tooling, automation, testing, and development workflows
Contribute to project planning, technical estimation, risk management, and delivery milestones
Champion engineering best practices including documentation, version control, CI/CD, and software quality standardsAbout You
Strong commercial experience developing embedded software in C and C++
Proven experience leading or mentoring engineers within a small technical team or project environment
Strong understanding of embedded systems architecture and full software development lifecycle practices
Experience developing RTOS-based applications
Hands-on experience with embedded communication protocols such as BLE, CAN, I2C, UART, or SPI
Comfortable working across hardware/software boundaries, including debugging and system integration
Experience using version control systems, particularly Git, within collaborative development environments
A proactive technical problem-solver with strong analytical and root-cause investigation skills
Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholdersDesirable Skills
Exposure to functional safety standards such as ISO 13849 or ISO 26262
Experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern development tooling (e.g. Jenkins, Docker)
Familiarity with Python for automation, tooling, or test development
Experience contributing to technical roadmaps, architectural strategy, or platform standardisatioNWhy Apply?
This is an excellent opportunity for a senior embedded engineer ready to step into a lead role - or an existing lead engineer looking for greater technical ownership and influence within an innovative engineering environment developing advanced electric products.
Apply today with an up-to-date CV