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Form Energy is seeking a Director of Software & Firmware Engineering to lead the organization responsible for software and firmware that operate their energy storage products. Reporting to the Senior Director of Software Engineering & Test Engineering, you will oversee embedded software, firmware, commissioning and service applications, and engineering support throughout the product lifecycle. This role offers the opportunity to shape the architecture, teams, and operating model behind a complex, software-enabled energy product with meaningful impact on the electric grid.
Key responsibilities include:
- Lead and develop engineering managers, senior technical leaders, individual contributors, and contractors across embedded software, firmware, systems engineering, manufacturing software, and fleet operations.
- Establish an integrated engineering strategy across requirements, architecture, reusable product platforms, firmware delivery, deployment, and operational support.
- Drive a requirements-first and tooling-first approach to software development, safety, security, compliance, and technical evidence.
- Build reusable software and firmware platforms spanning operating systems, middleware, networking, device runtime, simulation, build systems, release tooling, deployment interfaces, and secure OTA delivery mechanisms.
- Lead the organization responsible for product firmware delivery, integration, debugging, release readiness, system bring-up, rapid prototyping, fixtures, and supporting engineering tools.
- Oversee production rollout and operation of deployed software, including fleet observability, production SRE, OTA execution, commissioning and service applications, incident response, and long-term fleet reliability.
- Ensure commissioning, service, field, product, and test organizations receive effective software and firmware support throughout the product lifecycle.
- Develop integrated staffing and execution plans, identify technical and organizational risks early, and drive clear prioritization decisions across competing product needs.
- Partner closely with Product Management, hardware, controls, manufacturing, field operations, regulatory teams, Engineering Automation, and Product Quality.
- Build a strong engineering culture centered on accountability, technical rigor, rapid learning, maintainability, modularity, reuse, and long-term fleet operability.
Form Energy is an American manufacturing and energy technology company revolutionizing energy storage with cost-effective, multi-day iron-air battery technology designed to keep the electric grid secure and reliable. The company has been recognized by TIME as a "Best Invention", MIT Technology Review as a "Top Climate Tech Company To Watch", and Fast Company as "One of the Next Big Things In Tech". Production of iron-air batteries is underway at their first high-volume manufacturing facility in West Virginia, with contracts signed with leading electric utilities across the United States.
Relocation assistance is available.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 15+ years of experience in software, firmware, embedded systems, or product systems engineering, including significant experience leading managers and multidisciplinary engineering organizations.
- Demonstrated success delivering complex software-enabled physical products through architecture, implementation, integration, verification, production, deployment, and field operation.
- Strong technical depth in embedded software and firmware, operating systems, middleware, networking, distributed systems, and hardware/software interfaces.
- Experience establishing requirements, systems architecture, technical governance, verification strategy, and engineering processes across multiple teams.
- Proven ability to recruit, develop, and retain strong engineering managers and technical leaders while building clear organizational ownership and accountability.
- Demonstrated ability to translate product priorities into staffing, investment, sequencing, and delivery decisions, make difficult tradeoffs, and communicate technical and organizational risks to executive and cross-functional audiences.
