Principal Embedded Engineer

Hatch is on a mission to help people build better sleep habits through innovative smart sleep devices. They are seeking a Principal Embedded Engineer to lead the technical direction and architecture of their connected device platform, focusing on firmware development and system reliability across millions of devices.

Responsibilities:

• Learn our firmware architecture, development process, and hardware ecosystem
• Contribute to and build context within the firmware codebase to understand key design patterns and dependencies
• Develop a deep understanding of the product roadmap to start envisioning the future architecture of Hatch’s connected devices
• Participate in incident triage (disconnects, crashes, regressions) and guide structured root-cause analysis and long-term remediation
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of our current embedded architecture and clearly articulate its strengths and limitations
• Champion engineering best practices—mentoring engineers, raising the technical bar, and fostering a culture of craftsmanship, accountability, and innovation
• Debug and resolve the most challenging issues in the system, setting the standard for technical excellence
• Architect and lead refactors of large, complex areas of the system to improve reliability, performance, and scalability
• Define and drive the team’s technical direction, from coding standards to architectural evolution and next-generation system design
• Lead the design and implementation of firmware for Hatch’s next generation of products, ensuring alignment with company goals and product strategy

Requirements:

• 12+ years of firmware or embedded systems engineering experience, including proven technical leadership
• Hands-on technical leadership style. Comfortable writing production code, unblocking engineers, and making pragmatic architectural decisions alongside setting technical direction
• Deep knowledge of firmware development for connected or IoT devices
• Expertise with wireless communication protocols (BLE, Wi-Fi), over-the-air (OTA) update systems, and low-power system design
• Strong understanding of embedded observability and testability, including structured logging, diagnostics, and automated integration testing
• A track record of mentoring engineers and fostering a high-performance, growth-oriented environment
• Active interest in leveraging AI tools to improve development velocity and open new ways to deliver value to our customers
• Experience with ESP32/FreeRTOS in low-latency, resource-constrained environments is a strong plus
• Experience with hardware design or close collaboration with electrical engineering teams is a plus