Senior R&D Manager, Smart Devices

Overview

Lead the Embedded OS and UX team responsible for creating dependable, intuitive, and maintainable device platforms, combining people leadership with technical direction across Yocto Linux and/or Android OS, board support packages, system services, device integration, and user experience.

What you'll do

• Lead the design and implementation of embedded OS platform architecture using Yocto Linux and/or Android OS, aligning platform choices with product, hardware, security, and UX goals.
• Own the team roadmap, architectural direction, technical debt strategy, and delivery plans for platform, middleware, device integration, and embedded UX capabilities.
• Provide technical leadership across board support packages, bootloaders, Linux kernel configuration, device drivers, hardware abstraction layers, system services, and application frameworks.
• Partner with Product, UX, Hardware, Systems, Quality, and Security teams to translate customer workflows into coherent, responsive, and accessible device experiences.
• Establish reproducible build and release practices, including source control, code review, continuous integration, automated validation, artifact traceability, and release governance.
• Strengthen product quality through unit, integration, system, performance, reliability, hardware-in-the-loop, and end-to-end testing across target devices.
• Guide secure platform engineering, including secure boot, signed software, permissions, vulnerability remediation, SBOM practices, and over-the-air update strategies.
• Work closely with Release Engineering and DevOps teams to ensure the smooth operation of build, test, packaging, deployment, and sustaining-engineering workflows.
• Drive functional excellence initiatives, deliver high-quality R&D functional deliverables, and ensure technical excellence for product or technology development.
• Drive technical projects of major magnitude and scope.
• Stay current with industry trends and emerging technologies, applying this knowledge to continuously improve embedded platform architecture, development practices, and UX quality.
• Act as a performance coach by providing actionable feedback, setting clear objectives, developing technical talent, and building an inclusive, accountable engineering culture.
• Communicate plans, risks, trade-offs, and technical information clearly to team members and business stakeholders, supporting decisions with evidence and sound engineering judgment.

What you'll need

• Strong experience building and shipping embedded Linux and/or Android-based products, with a practical understanding of OS architecture, system startup, resource management, and device lifecycle.
• Hands-on expertise with the Yocto Project, including custom layers, recipes, image generation, SDKs, reproducible builds, package management, and distro or machine configuration.
• Experience with Android OS or AOSP, including the Android build system, framework services, HALs, permissions, system applications, OTA updates, and platform customization.
• Proficiency in modern C/C++ and scripting with Python and shell.
• Deep understanding of BSP development, U-Boot or other bootloaders, Linux kernel configuration, device drivers, middleware, and hardware abstraction layers.
• Experience with embedded UX technologies such as Android UI, Qt/QML, Wayland/Weston, or comparable frameworks, including performance, responsiveness, and accessibility considerations.
• Working knowledge of hardware and connectivity interfaces such as I2C, SPI, UART, USB, Ethernet, CAN, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and display or input subsystems.
• Strong debugging and profiling skills using tools such as GDB, perf, ftrace, kernel logs, logcat, crash dumps, tracing, and system observability tooling.
• Experience with CI/CD and engineering tools such as Git, Gerrit, Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, or similar technologies.
• Understanding of embedded security, secure boot, code signing, key management, vulnerability response, SBOMs, and long-term product maintenance.
• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to analyze complex technical issues and develop creative, evidence-based solutions.
• Good communication skills and the ability to work effectively in Agile, cross-functional, and geographically distributed development environments.
• Talented performance coach who is skilled at providing actionable feedback to team members, setting clear performance objectives, and managing team member performance.
• Experience executing a talent and performance-management strategy, including hiring, onboarding, development planning, succession planning, and organizational health.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate plans and technical information to team members and stakeholders within a business unit.
• Proven ability to deliver programs or other business goals on time, on quality, and within budget while managing scope, risk, dependencies, and trade-offs.
• Ability to balance hands-on technical depth with thoughtful delegation, coaching, and long-term team capability building.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or a related field.
• 15+ years of applicable experience.
• A strong level of understanding and experience in one's technical or functional disciplines, with the ability to mentor others and raise the engineering bar.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with Java or Kotlin for Android platform and application integration is a plus.
• Master's degree in a related field.
• 6+ years of direct people-management experience.

Details

• Location: Bengaluru, India.
• Work mode: Hybrid or Onsite.
• Travel: 10%.