Software Lead

Software Lead:
Embedded Firmware & Robotics

Full-time
· Bethlehem, PA preferred / Remote-friendly
· Competitive Salary + Equity

About FLX Solutions:

FLX Solutions, Inc. builds robotic systems that make inspection and maintenance faster, safer, and more repeatable, especially in tight, hard-to-reach spaces.

Our flagship platform, the FLX BOT, is a modular, handheld, snake-like articulating robotic system designed to solve one of the toughest challenges in maintenance: reaching the “last meter” in complex environments. It is already in use with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, a major DoD prime, and shipbuilders, with expanding applications across industrial, transit, and construction sectors.

The Opportunity:

FLX Solutions is at a key inflection point: the FLX BOT technology is already proven, the market is responding, and we have a high-confidence pipeline of over $18M including an upcoming large pilot order from the Navy. This is just the beginning.

As we scale from pilots to commercial launch and full-scale production, we need a Software Lead who can take ownership of the embedded firmware stack, free up robotics research to focus on controls and autonomy, and turn our product roadmap into software milestones that actually ship.

This is a player-coach position with a strong bias toward doing on day one. You will personally write C++ code to get short term priorities up and running immediately, while laying the foundation for how embedded software gets built  parallel, you will define the roadmap and begin building a small embedded team over time, shifting from primarily hands-on execution to more leadership as the company scales.

You will direct embedded development, act as the software owner in hardware-heavy discussions, and be accountable for turning research into working product on real hardware. This is the role that answers "does this actually work?" and turns "we should be able to do x" into a working demo.

If you like architecture diagrams but hate it when they never touch silicon, this is your role. If you have shipped embedded code that runs in the field and have the scars to prove it, keep reading.

What You’ll Do:

Own and Ship the Firmware Stack:

• Take ownership of FLX’s embedded firmware across the FLX BOT platform.
• Design and develop robust, testable C/C++ firmware on ARM Cortex-M targets (STM
  32 and Teensy 3.2/4.0), drivers, communication stacks, control logic, and hardware abstraction layers.
• Take embedded software from early prototypes into production-grade systems, with an eye on reliability, maintainability, and long-term extensibility.
• Build and maintain bootloaders, OTA and in-field update systems, and flashing workflows that non-firmware engineers can run confidently during pilots and demos.
• Write and maintain APIs used by internal teams, customers, and partners

Bridge Research and Product:

• Partner with our senior roboticist and take ownership of the product-side embedded work so robotics research stays focused on controls, kinematics, and autonomy.
• Absorb existing tribal knowledge quickly and turn it into a system the broader team can operate, so firmware is never a single point of failure.
• Be the point person for bringing new FLX BOT hardware iterations online; flashing, commissioning, and validating each build.

Sensor Bring-Up and Rapid Prototyping:

• Own peripheral integrations end-to-end; actuators, motor controllers, RGBD cameras, IMUs, and time-of-flight sensors; from concept through prototype to production.
• Stand up vendor demo kits, wire in dev boards, get point clouds, images, and IMU data flowing, and run off-the-shelf examples so the team can iterate quickly.
• Rapidly prototype embedded experiments: make sensors talk, capture data, and prove out concepts that can later be productized.
• Debug and validate embedded systems using signal analyzers, oscilloscopes, and real hardware in real environments.

Define the Firmware Strategy:

• Meet with management and customer-facing teams to understand user needs, current and pending programs, and deadlines for product releases and functionality.
• Architect FLX’s go-to-market firmware strategy, software architecture patterns, module boundaries, and…