Sr. Director, Embedded Engineering

Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At NRG, we’re driven by our passion to create a smarter, cleaner and more connected future.

Vivint Smart Home, an NRG owned company, is a leading smart home company in the United States, dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services. We find purpose in proactively protecting and keeping our customers connected to home, no matter where they are. Join the Smart Home team to create smarter, safer and more sustainable homes.

About the Role

Vivint is seeking a Senior Director of Embedded Engineering to lead the teams that build the software powering every Vivint device in the home — from security cameras and video doorbells to smart home hubs, network devices, and sensors. Reporting to the SVP of Engineering, this leader owns firmware, embedded Linux, OS and runtime platforms, and the full connectivity and protocol stack that ties our device portfolio together in the Vivint smart home ecosystem.

Primary Responsibilities

• Leadership & Team Development
  • Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing organization of firmware and embedded Linux engineers across multiple device teams.
  • Build a team culture rooted in engineering excellence, reliability, and customer impact.
  • Define career paths, set performance expectations, and invest in the growth of every engineer.
  • Partner with recruiting to attract top embedded engineering talent.
• Technical Strategy & Architecture
  • Own the multi-year technical roadmap for Vivint's embedded software platform — spanning firmware, embedded Linux, OS/runtime, imaging and video pipelines, and connectivity stacks.
  • Set architectural standards that support scalability, security, and maintainability across a diverse and growing device portfolio.
  • Drive modern embedded development practices: CI/CD for software, automated testing, and reliable OTA update infrastructure at fleet scale.
• Product & Hardware Collaboration
  • Partner with Hardware Engineering on new product introductions: co-design system architectures, evaluate SoCs and image sensors, and drive hardware-software integration from concept through mass production.
  • Serve as the embedded software owner in shared-responsibility engagements with JDM and silicon vendors, including chipset evaluation for compute, video, and networking.
  • Work with Backend Engineering to define clean device-to-cloud interfaces, remote device management, and real-time data flows.
• Quality, Reliability & Security
  • Set and enforce standards for firmware quality, stability, and security — including secure boot, code signing, and secure OTA update processes.
  • Drive down field defect rates through rigorous pre-production testing, staged rollout practices, and post-launch fleet health monitoring.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of embedded software engineering experience, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.
• Deep expertise in camera and video systems, including image signal processing and video encoding pipelines.
• Strong understanding of AI and computer vision requirements — edge inference constraints, model optimization tradeoffs, and hardware platform considerations — sufficient to drive platform decisions.
• Hands-on experience with firmware development (bare-metal and/or RTOS) and embedded Linux.
• Experience managing or closely collaborating on hardware bring-up, BSP development, and JDM/contract manufacturer relationships.
• Proven ability to define and execute multi-year embedded platform roadmaps in a consumer or commercial device company.
• B.S. in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• Some travel required.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in the smart home or connected-device industry.
• Familiarity with imaging and video pipeline technologies (GStreamer, H.264/H.265, WebRTC, RTSP, HLS) and connectivity stacks (Z-Wave, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, BLE, Matter, MQTT).
• Familiarity with camera SoC platforms.
• Hands-on experience integrating or deploying AI/ML models on embedded devices.
• Experience with Yocto or similar embedded Linux build systems.
• Experience with OpenWrt or similar for network device platforms.

Why You'll Love Working Here

Learn about the Vivint Culture and why it's a great place to grow your career! Here are some highlighted perks you should ask us about:

• Paid holidays and flexible paid time away
• Employee/Friends/Family Discounts
• Medical/dental/vision/life coverage
• 401(k) + Employer Match
• Employee Resource Groups
• Annual Bonus
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Quarterly Innovation Weeks

Working Conditions

This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment.

Safety

Vivint enforces a safety culture whereby all employees have the responsibility for continuously developing and maintaining a safe working environment. Each new employee is responsible for completing all training requirements. Additionally, the employee must accept they have responsibility for maintaining the safety of themselves, their co-workers, and the public. Employee must adhere to all written and verbal instructions, promptly report and correct all hazards or unsafe conditions, question non-standard operations or unmitigated hazards, and provide feedback to management on all safety issues.

NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.

The base salary range for this position is: $228,880- $377,640* *The base salary range above represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salaries will vary based on several factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of the total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include annual bonus, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition the position may be eligible to participate in the benefits program which include, but are not limited to, medical, vision, dental, 401K, and flexible spending accounts.  

NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Protected Veteran Status/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.

EEO is the Law Poster (The poster can be found at http://www.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/poster_screen_reader_optimized.pdf)

Official description on file with Talent.