Engineering Manager II

Samsara Samsara · Enterprise · San Francisco, CA · Hardware Engineering

Engineering Manager II to lead a Platform Firmware team focused on new hardware programs and partner execution. This team works at the intersection of firmware, hardware, quality engineering, product, field engineering, and external technical partners to bring new connected operations devices from early bring-up through production readiness. Owns the execution pipeline for partner-driven hardware programs, including milestone planning, validation readiness, quality gates, escalation paths, and cross-functional delivery. Leads a team of firmware engineers and builds the operating cadence, relationships, and technical strategy needed to ship high-quality hardware programs at scale.

What you'd actually do

  1. Own the execution pipeline for new hardware programs with external design, manufacturing, and silicon partners, including milestone planning, validation readiness, quality gates, partner escalations, and delivery risks.
  2. Manage and develop a team of firmware engineers working on platform firmware that enables Samsara's next-generation hardware products.
  3. Drive coordination across firmware, hardware engineering, product, quality engineering, field engineering, and external partners to resolve hardware and firmware integration issues.
  4. Build a predictable operating cadence for partner communication, technical triage, schedule tradeoffs, risk reporting, and leadership escalation.
  5. Define and improve the long-term technical and execution strategy for partner-driven hardware programs, making each program more predictable, efficient, and scalable.

Skills

Required

  • 8+ years of relevant software, firmware, embedded systems, or hardware-adjacent engineering experience.
  • 3+ years of people management experience leading firmware, embedded, platform, hardware, or hardware-adjacent engineering teams.
  • Experience working with external technical partners such as JDMs, ODMs, contract manufacturers, silicon vendors, or hardware vendors.
  • Experience delivering new hardware, firmware, embedded systems, or hardware-adjacent programs from prototype through production readiness.
  • Strong understanding of firmware development, hardware bring-up, validation, release quality, and cross-functional delivery.
  • Strong communication skills, including the ability to provide clear status, frame tradeoffs, and escalate risks with data.
  • Ability to work effectively with product, hardware, quality, field, manufacturing, and engineering leadership stakeholders.

Nice to have

  • Experience with EVT, DVT, PVT, MP, or similar hardware development milestones.
  • Experience managing firmware programs involving Linux, BSPs, device drivers, bootloaders, wireless modules, power management, or embedded platform software.
  • Experience working with globally distributed design, manufacturing, or silicon partners.
  • Experience balancing speed, quality, customer impact, and long-term platform reliability in hardware programs.
  • Experience improving team execution through AI-assisted engineering tools, automation, or developer productivity workflows.
  • A product-driven mindset with strong customer empathy and persistent follow-through.

What the JD emphasized

  • partner execution
  • external technical partners
  • partner-driven hardware programs
  • external design, manufacturing, and silicon partners
  • external partners
  • globally distributed design, manufacturing, or silicon partners