What are the responsibilities and job description for the Embedded Software Team Leads position at District Partners?
Embedded Software Team Leads – Bare Metal | Networking | Cryptography
Reston, VA or McLean, VA | Onsite | U.S. Citizenship Required | Top Secret Clearance Required
District Partners is supporting a rapidly scaling defense tech firm is hiring multiple Embedded Software Team Leads (six roles available) to drive the development of mission-critical embedded platforms in the areas of bare-metal systems, secure networking, and cryptographic infrastructure. These roles are ideal for deeply technical leaders who want to roll up their sleeves, own system-level software, and lead high-impact development teams in fast-paced, security-focused environments.
Top 3 Professional Attributes:
- Hands-on technical leadership – leads by example in architecture, code quality, and delivery.
- System-level problem solver – understands how hardware, software, and security intersect.
- Mission ownership mindset – thrives in high-stakes environments with a bias toward execution.
Required Technical Skills:
- 8 years of experience in embedded software development using C, C , or Rust.
- 5 years of experience leading engineering teams delivering production-grade code.
- Deep knowledge of bare-metal system design – including ISRs, MMUs, bootloaders, memory management, and I/O (UART, SPI, I2C, eMMC, etc.).
- Proven experience working with System-on-Chip (SoC) architectures and custom hardware integration.
- Strong grasp of networking protocols and secure communications frameworks.
- Experience designing or integrating low-level cryptographic solutions, entropy generation, and control flow integrity protections.
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, static code analysis, and advanced debugging.
- Commitment to clean, tested, and well-documented code with a focus on long-term maintainability.
What You’ll Do:
- Lead and mentor a team of 5–8 embedded engineers, drive team performance and technical direction.
- Design and develop high-assurance, low-level embedded software for secure systems.
- Collaborate with hardware, systems, and external teams to deliver integrated capabilities.
- Own and manage software execution plans, technical roadmaps, and sprint-level priorities.
- Review, refactor, and contribute to the codebase as needed to meet high-urgency deadlines.
- Serve as a technical point-of-contact for internal and external stakeholders.
- Triage complex system failures and drive root cause resolution at the firmware/hardware boundary.
Location & Clearance:
- Must be onsite in Reston or McLean, VA
- Must be a U.S. Citizen with an active Top-Secret clearance
- Relocation assistance is provided
Compensation & Perks:
- Up to $200,000 base salary
- Equity options included based on experience and technical leadership
- Opportunity to work on programs of national importance with cutting-edge technology and real-world impact
Salary : $200,000
