BCI Software Team Lead

Build the systems that expand human capability

At Blackrock Neurotech, we've spent decades making the impossible possible - helping people move, speak, and reconnect with the world when they otherwise could not. We've seen that restoring function restores more than ability. It restores independence, identity, and agency.

Today, we are building the next generation of human capability: brain-computer interfaces that are designed to be safe, scalable, and trusted in the real world. Our work is not only about reconnecting people to what was lost, but about expanding what is possible - creating a seamless interface between human intent and technology.

This is foundational work in a category-defining field. You will help build the infrastructure for a future where neural interfaces are invisible, reliable, and deeply human-centered.

Working at Blackrock Neurotech means:

• Owning meaningful, high-impact problems at the frontier of science and engineering
• Building alongside experienced, thoughtful peers across disciplines
• Solving technically complex challenges grounded in real human outcomes
• Contributing to a culture that values rigor, clarity, and long-term thinking over noise

The Role

This role exists to translate Blackrock Neurotech's brain-computer interface research into reliable, regulated, real-time software that reaches users. The Software Team Lead sits at the critical boundary between experimental neural data processing and production-grade, IEC 62304-compliant systems, ensuring that novel concepts in decoding and signal interpretation are transformed into safe, scalable, and maintainable software.

You will lead a team of 5-8 engineers while also contributing hands-on code, setting technical direction, and owning the architecture of the platforms that acquire, process, and interpret real-time neural and physiological signals. You will partner closely with neuroscience, firmware, hardware, clinical, and regulatory teams to ensure software accelerates rather than constrains the path from lab to patient.

Success In This Role Looks Like

• Establishing a stable, high-trust engineering team with clear ownership, technical direction, and growth paths
• Delivering a documented, defensible software architecture aligned with product, research, and regulatory requirements
• Driving measurable improvements in real-time system performance, reliability, and cybersecurity posture
• Consistently meeting milestones and shipping production-ready software aligned with clinical and regulatory needs

You will operate with meaningful ownership in a high-consequence environment, contributing to systems that must be precise, reliable, and durable.

The Impact You'll Make

This is not incremental work. You will help define how humans interact with technology for decades to come. It requires sound judgment, technical depth, and a commitment to getting important things right.

You will:

• Build and shape real-time brain-computer interface software systems that move research into clinical and patient-facing applications
• Directly influence how people interact with critical neurotechnology that restores communication, mobility, and independence
• Contribute to work that improves lives through safer, more capable, and more reliable BCI systems that patients depend on daily

What You'll Do

The Software Team Lead is a hybrid leadership and hands-on engineering role, spending time both guiding a team of 5-8 engineers and directly contributing to the codebase. You'll move fluidly between architecture design, technical decision-making, regulatory documentation, and day-to-day engineering work, while also owning core people leadership responsibilities such as hiring, onboarding, performance management, goal-setting, and career development.

You will own the technical direction and architecture of Blackrock Neurotech's BCI application software used across preclinical research, clinical trials, and future medical devices. This means you are responsible for how the platform acquires, processes, and interprets real-time neural and physiological data, and for ensuring it remains scalable, performant, reliable, and compliant as the system grows and moves toward regulated deployment.

On a day-to-day basis, you'll work on problems at the intersection of real-time, embedded, and regulated medical-device software while collaborating across multiple disciplines to turn complex neuroscience and engineering challenges into shipped systems.

• Lead and mentor a team of 5-8 engineers while actively contributing to the codebase
• Own system architecture and technical direction for real-time BCI application software
• Design and maintain low-latency, high-reliability streaming signal-processing pipelines
• Ensure deterministic performance across CPU, GPU, and/or FPGA-accelerated components
• Strengthen cybersecurity and reliability of connected medical-device software systems
• Define and enforce engineering standards, design review processes, and best practices
• Drive software readiness for clinical studies, trials, and regulated device environments
• Balance research prototyping with production-grade software development and long-term maintainability
• Partner closely with neuroscientists on signal processing and algorithm requirements
• Collaborate with hardware and firmware teams on system integration and performance
• Work with clinical teams on study design, trial software needs, and deployment readiness
• Coordinate with Regulatory and Quality teams on documentation, traceability, and verification requirements

What You Bring

Minimum Qualifications

Experience & Domain

• 10+ years combined education and experience in software engineering, with at least 3 years building production software in the field
• 3+ years leading or managing engineering teams, with demonstrated success running teams through hiring, mentorship, goal-setting, and performance management
• Proven track record of shipping production software in real-time, embedded, or safety-critical domains
• Experience developing software for, or within, a regulated environment (e.g., for medical device, ISO 13485, FDA QSR/QMSR, or equivalent)

Technical Competencies

• Demonstrated ability to define and communicate software architecture for complex, multi-component systems to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Strong command of real-time architectures, data streaming, and signal processing, including determinism, latency constraints, and resource management
• Proficiency in real-time and/or embedded software development
• Hands-on proficiency in Python for data pipelines, test automation, and prototyping
• Working experience with high-performance compute for low-latency signal processing using GPU (Metal, CUDA, OpenCL), FPGA, or equivalent
• Familiarity with cybersecurity principles for networked or connected medical device software (threat modeling, secure coding practices, vulnerability management)

Behaviors & Attributes

• Ownership mindset that takes accountability for individual, team, and department outcomes and follows problems through to resolution
• Leads by example, balancing hands-on technical contribution with mentorship and people leadership rather than choosing one over the other
• Sound technical judgment under ambiguity, with the discernment to know when to invest in productization versus prototype and when to escalate
• Curiosity and adaptability through active tracking of advances in real-time systems and neurotechnology and adjusts approach as the company, products, and regulatory landscape evolve
• Excellent communicator and cross-functional coordinator across neuroscience, hardware, firmware, clinical, regulatory, and quality partners

Preferred Qualifications
We're especially interested in candidates who have operated at the intersection of real-time systems, hardware integration, and regulated medical software environments. Ideal backgrounds combine deep technical systems expertise with experience translating complex research or clinical requirements into reliable, production-grade software in fast-moving settings.

Domain Expertise

• Prior experience building software for brain-computer interfaces, neural recording systems, or closed-loop neurostimulation
• Deep understanding of real-time and multi-threaded systems, including OS-, scheduler-, or kernel-level performance tuning and debugging
• Strong systems thinking with proven ability to tightly integrate software with hardware, firmware, and clinical workflows

Regulated and clinical environment experience

• Experience supporting FDA submissions (IDE, 510(k), De Novo) in a technical or engineering leadership role
• Familiarity with IEC 62304 and design-controlled development, including authoring or reviewing software lifecycle and traceability artifacts
• Experience working within clinical study or trial environments, including software deployment to sites, protocol alignment, and safety reporting

Environment and stage fit

• Experience in startup, scale-up, or deep-tech environments with rapidly shifting priorities and lightweight process structure
• Proven ability to balance research prototyping with disciplined productization, taking ideas from early exploration to regulated, shipped systems without losing technical intent

Differentiators

• Track record of mentoring engineers and building high-trust, inclusive teams that perform under pressure and through ambiguity
• Open-source contributions, publications, or conference talks in real-time systems, neurotechnology, signal processing, or medical device software
• Background in neuroscience, biomedical engineering, or related fields enabling fluent collaboration with scientific and clinical partners
• Experience hiring and scaling engineering teams through rapid growth or regulatory transition periods

How We Work

We are a small, experienced team working on consequential problems.

• We take ownership of outcomes and follow through with clarity and accountability
• We prioritize sustained, high-quality work over performative urgency
• We value rigor, sound judgement and thoughtful decision-making
• We collaborate deliberately: low ego, high trust and high context

This is a high-ownership role, but it is not an "always-on" one. We expect strong work and our people to have a life outside of it.