Firmware Technical Leader

Location: Ottawa, Canada
Thales people architect identity management and data protection solutions at the heart of digital security. Business and governments rely on us to bring trust to the billions of digital interactions they have with people. Our technologies and services help banks exchange funds, people cross borders, energy become smarter and much more. More than 30,000 organizations already rely on us to verify the identities of people and things, grant access to digital services, analyze vast quantities of information and encrypt data to make the connected world more secure.

This is a hybrid position in Ottawa, ON

Position Summary:

The firmware technical lead steers our development team through complex projects, blending deep technical expertise with leadership skills to coach and grow the technical expertise of the team, while championing AI-assisted development practices that raise the productivity and quality bar of the entire firmware organization.

Essential Functions:

Firmware Embedded Technical Lead at Thales:

We are currently seeking a skilled Technical Lead (Firmware) to guide our development team through complex projects with precision and foresight. This role is tailor-made for an experienced firmware-software developer who combines deep technical knowledge with a talent for leadership and proven track record of delivery.

Key Responsibilities:

• Execution Excellence: Ensure the timely delivery of embedded firmware and software features as part of GA releases that meet our rigorous quality standards. You will be directly responsible for seeing through our product commitments from conception to deployment.

• Technical Contribution: Play a crucial role in shaping our product's technical future by contributing to the development of robust, scalable product (firmware, software) architectures.

• Project Execution and Strategy: Take a proactive role in setting project priorities and breaking down complex features, aligning your efforts with our product's long-term vision and immediate goals.

• Engineering Mentorship: Lead by example, mentoring our engineering team through hands-on collaboration, code reviews, and sharing best practices. Your guidance will be instrumental in their professional development and the continuous improvement of our product.

• Problem Solving and Collaboration: Identify and address technical challenges, facilitating effective collaboration across teams to ensure project milestones are met efficiently.

• AI-Augmented Engineering: Champion the adoption of AI-assisted development within the team, including spec-driven development, AI code and test generation, and AI-supported code review. Establish and enforce the guardrails that keep AI-generated code to our security and quality standards, and mentor engineers in the effective, critical use of AI tools – knowing when to trust the output and when to verify it.

How Will You Create Impact?

• As our LUNA GP HSM Technical Lead, you will play a pivotal role in not just leading the technical direction of our products but also in ensuring their successful delivery.

• You'll have the opportunity to make a tangible impact on our product outcomes and the growth of our engineering team. We value leaders who are innovators at heart but understand that at the end of the day, delivery is what counts.

• If you're ready to take on a role where you can genuinely make things happen, apply now to join Thales in driving our product forward, with innovation and quality at the forefront.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Math, Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years of hands-on Software and firmware Engineering Experience in cybersecurity with 3+ years leading the technical direction and deliveries of an engineering team
• 10+ years expertise with C/C++ and a solid understanding of embedded systems, and hardware interfaces.
• Experience in software and firmware design, security concepts and micro services. Secure development practices for HSMs along with performance fine tuning for crypto firmware applications.
• CI/CD (GIT, CI/CD, Jenkins)
• Hands-on experience applying AI coding assistants or agents (e.g., Claude Code, Cline, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI) to real C/C++ embedded development – code generation, automated test generation, code review, and design documentation – not just experimentation.
• Demonstrated judgment with AI-generated code: the ability to recognize hallucinated assumptions, audit generated tests for functional completeness (not just structural coverage), and hold all code to the same security and quality bar regardless of whether a human or an AI wrote it.
• A growth mindset: genuine curiosity and a track record of learning, evaluating, and adopting new tools and methodologies, adding to existing skills rather than defending them, and coaching others through the same transition.
• Strong knowledge and experience in software development life cycle, agile methodology, and architectural principles.
• Good verbal and written communication skills; able to effectively articulate technical vision, strategy, and outcomes.
• Exceptional leadership skills, proficiency in giving constructive feedback and capable of motivating and guiding the team through complex projects while promoting an agile culture of innovation and learning.
• Strong organizational skills, adept at managing time effectively and prioritizing tasks to meet project deadlines.
• A commitment to quality, with a meticulous eye for detail and a methodical mindset to ensure that we deliver excellent products consistently.

Preferred Qualifications

• Masters in embedded firmware development.
• Expertise in cybersecurity and cryptographic algorithms and protocols, including vulnerability scanning and management.
• High availability clustering, performance fine-tuning and database Expertise
• Expertise with Docker containers and virtualization
• Experience with spec-driven or contract-first AI development workflows: locked acceptance criteria (e.g., Gherkin contracts), requirement-to-test traceability matrices, and AI-generated implementation and test suites validated against frozen specifications.
• Experience with prompt and context engineering for large legacy codebases: repository knowledge priming, context window management, and maintaining shared agent instruction files (e.g., AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md conventions) across a team.
• Experience measuring and communicating the productivity impact of AI-assisted development, including effort and schedule metrics and recalibrating agile estimation for AI-assisted work.

The anticipated TTC range for this role is 157,996.89 - 197,496.11 CAD Annual. The Company reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s status protected by local, state, or federal law.

This reflects how companies in a similar industry and geographic region generally pay for similar jobs. This range helps the Company make pay decisions as one data point among many. Where a position falls within this range is also dependent on other factors including – but not limited to – the employee’s career path history, competencies, skills and performance, as well as the company’s annual salary budget, the customer’s program requirements, and the company’s internal equity. Thales may offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s status protected by local, state, or federal law.

We use artificial intelligence–enabled tools as part of our recruitment process to support activities such as candidate discovery, résumé matching, and interview scheduling. These tools may help screen and assess applications and recommend potential matches based on the requirements within the job description. All hiring decisions, including candidate evaluation, selection, and disposition, are made by human recruiters. Artificial intelligence does not make hiring decisions on our behalf.

If you’re excited about working with Thales, but not meeting the requirements for this position, we encourage you to join our Talent Community! https://careers.thalesgroup.com/global/en/jointalentcommunity. You can upload your CV and our recruiters can get in touch with any new opportunities that may be of interest to you.

Why Join Us?

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Thales provides an extensive benefits program for all full-time employees working 24 or more hours per week and their eligible dependents, including the following:

• Company paid Extended Health, Dental, HSA, Life, AD&D, Short-term Disability, Cancer Care Program, travel insurance, Employee Assistance Plan and Well-Being program.

• Retirement Savings Plans (RRSP, DCPP, TFSA) with a company contribution and a match to a DCPP, with no vesting period.

• Company paid holidays, vacation days, and paid sick leave.

• Voluntary Life, AD&D, Critical Illness, Long-Term Disability.

• Employee Discounts on home, auto, and gym membership.

Thales is an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. Thales is committed to providing accommodations in all parts of the interview process. Applicants selected for an interview who require accommodation are asked to advise accordingly upon the invitation for an interview. We will work with you to meet your needs. All accommodation information provided will be treated as confidential and used only for the purpose of providing an accessible candidate experience.