Software Engineering Team Lead (Edge Computing)
Instrumental
Software Engineering
Palo Alto, CA, USA
USD 209k-223k / year
Posted on Nov 19, 2025
Software Engineering Team Lead (Edge Computing)
Palo Alto, CA
Engineering
In office
Full-time
Instrumental technology is used by the world’s most admired electronics brands — including Meta, NVIDIA, Bose, and Cisco — to significantly reduce the $12T lost every year to downtime, scrap, and mistakes in manufacturing. Our system collects data directly from the factory floor and uses proprietary AI to automatically identify and resolve issues, helping teams improve yield, quality, and time to market.
We’re looking for a Software Engineering Team Lead for our Edge Computing Team to guide the software and systems that power Instrumental’s in-factory stations — the edge computing backbone that connects hardware, sensors, and operators on the line to our cloud platform.
Our company values are Play to Win, Be Helpful, and Work with Joy. People who are collaborative, hold themselves to a high standard of excellence, find a way to deliver in spite of challenges, and bring positivity to their work tend to thrive at Instrumental. A hands-on technical leader who embodies these qualities — and loves working with a talented group of engineers who also pride themselves in these qualities — will find this role especially rewarding.
We are a team where every hire really matters. Your work will directly impact the experiences of our teammates and the trajectory of the company!
What You Will Do:
- Roadmap & Product Partnership
- Represent our Edge Computing software function internally to our teams, leadership team, and externally to our customers and partners.
- Work with our R&D, Product, and CSx/Ops teams to define and maintain a clear, prioritized roadmap for our Edge Computing Team, based on our current business strategy and goals.
- Translate company and customer goals into actionable engineering plans with measurable deliverables that balance the ability to iterate quickly and incrementally with delivered value - while also preventing line-down situations.
- Communicate with the team to keep them aligned with broader company initiatives and priorities, ensuring it is highlighted how their day-to-day work is impactful to the broader company goals.
- Team Development and People Leadership
- Coach, mentor, and grow engineers on your team in their technical mastery and careers.
- Build a culture of multi-directional, honest, constructive feedback — celebrating wins while addressing issues early and directly. Model and reinforce clear, respectful communication so engineers trust that feedback is about growth.
- Create a multi-directional culture of transparency through consistent communication. Foster proactive communication habits by setting clear expectations for how, when, and with whom the team shares updates, needs, and blockers — making it easy for Product, Ops, and other Engineering teams to anticipate changes and collaborate without surprises.
- Hands-on Technical Leadership
- Stay close to the codebase through reviews, design discussions, and targeted hands-on contributions - ensuring we balance delivering quickly and avoiding unnecessary complexity with operational safety.
- Drive - with collaboration from our team - improvements to our embedded Linux systems, deployment pipelines, and OS reliability
- Collaborate/support the Edge Compute engineers in troubleshooting real-time issues or asks from our CSx and Ops team.
We’d Love to Chat if You Have:
- 5+ years of experience of building and shipping production software - ideally including leading teams on both customer-facing and technical initiatives. We’re looking for candidates that can demonstrate technical mastery but also empower their teams to innovate.
- 1+ year of managing people, including both early-career and seasoned engineers. Prior experience in a hybrid hands-on + leadership role is ideal but we’d also like to chat if you have the aspiration to grow into one.
- Demonstrated passion for understanding and solving customer problems in prior roles – you understand customer use cases and requirements to ensure what you deliver has maximum impact.
- A demonstrated ability to communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiences — connecting engineering execution with customer impact.
- Experience maintaining or customizing a Linux distribution (Buildroot, Yocto, or similar).
- Proficiency in one or more systems programming languages, C, C++, Rust, etc., and a web stack.
- Proficiency in one or more scripting languages: Python, Bash, etc.
Bonus Points if You Have Experience With:
- Experience managing releases or scaling software across distributed hardware fleets.
- Familiarity with network security and protocols, device provisioning, and update pipelines.
- Embedded Linux systems, distributed edge devices, or systems programming.
- Support and maintenance of buildroot-based operating system
- Application development using Docker, Node.js and C++ native modules, SQLite, GraphQL, and Angular/React.
- Manufacturing or hardware-integrated systems.
- Helping others grow through mentorship and collaboration
We’re a growing team that consistently works collaboratively, is supportive of each other, and is highly energized by the opportunity for large impact. We actively work to promote an inclusive environment, valuing passion and the ability to learn. You’re encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn’t precisely match the job description!
The following is a representative annual base salary range for this position within the Bay Area: $209-223k. Job level and salary opportunities are evaluated through our interview process – we review the experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of each applicant.
All candidates must have an unrestricted right to work in the U.S.
Req ID: R33