Principal Embedded Software Engineer

Principal Embedded Software Engineer

Hayward Holdings Inc. is the largest manufacturer of residential swimming pool equipment in the world, with a significant presence in the commercial pool market that is continuously growing. Hayward designs, manufactures, and markets a full line of residential and commercial pool and spa equipment including pumps, filters, heating, cleaners, salt chlorinators, automation, lighting, safety, flow control, and energy solutions at our company-owned facilities. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Hayward also has facilities in Tennessee, Arizona, and Rhode Island as well as Canada, Spain, France, Australia, and China. This position is based in North Kingstown, RI.

As a key member of the Firmware Engineering team, the Principal Embedded Software Engineer will define standards and best practices for the Firmware Engineering organization. This hands-on role involves architecting, managing, and executing product design and development from concept through volume production in a cross-functional team environment.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical guidance and mentorship
• Serve as the technical lead and architect for critical firmware and embedded software subsystems
• Design and develop complex embedded firmware systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability
• Drive firmware architecture decisions, including task scheduling, communication frameworks, hardware abstraction layers, and fault management strategies
• Participate in hands-on firmware development including low-level hardware integration, debugging, and performance optimization
• Lead system bring-up and hardware/software integration for new embedded platforms
• Coordinate firmware activities across cross-functional teams including hardware engineering, reliability engineering, product testing, compliance, and manufacturing
• Work with Engineering Services to ensure products meet reliability, regulatory, and compliance requirements
• Collaborate with manufacturing engineering and external suppliers to ensure successful production deployment
• Communicate development progress, technical risks, and mitigation plans through concise status reporting

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field
• 10+ years of embedded firmware development experience in a product development environment
• 3+ years leading firmware architecture or technical development efforts across teams
• Expert-level development in C/C++ for embedded systems
• Experience developing firmware on ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers or similar embedded platforms
• Strong understanding of real-time embedded systems and RTOS concepts
• Experience implementing and debugging embedded communication protocols, including UART, SPI, I2C, CAN and RS-485
• Experience with hardware bring-up, board-level debugging, and hardware/software integration
• Proficiency using embedded debugging tools such as JTAG/SWD debuggers, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers
• Experience designing robust embedded systems, including fault detection and recovery, watchdog strategies, logging and diagnostics, firmware update mechanisms and bootloaders
• Experience with configuration management systems (Git or equivalent) and engineering change control processes
• Knowledge of safety standards, EMC requirements, and regulatory compliance for embedded products
• Experience working with manufacturing engineering and production teams to transition products to high-volume manufacturing

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience developing firmware for connected or IoT-enabled products
• Familiarity with wireless protocols such as BLE or Wi-Fi
• Experience with static analysis tools and coding standards
• Experience with automated testing and firmware CI/CD pipelines
• Experience designing firmware platforms used across multiple product lines

At Hayward, we are committed to quality, innovation, and sustainability—delivering solutions that inspire happiness and well-being. If you're passionate about solving complex problems and driving product excellence, we invite you to join our team!