Sr Manager R&D

JOB DESCRIPTION

Work Schedule

Environmental Conditions

Job Description

As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you’ll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every single day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We provide our global teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while helping to take science a step beyond by developing solutions for some of the world’s toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.

Position Summary 

We are seeking a Sr. Manager , Firmware to serve as a firmware architect and technical authority for the GSD/BID (Genetic Systems Division) instrument framework. This role shapes reusable embedded architecture across instrument platforms, with emphasis on deterministic control behavior, subsystem interfaces, diagnostics, fault handling, serviceability, and long-term maintainability rather than ownership of a single instrument or instrument family. 

The role translates system intent into firmware architecture, behavioral models, interface contracts, reference patterns, and implementation guidance that enable consistent execution across programs. The engineer will work with peer firmware architects and senior technical leaders in other divisions to develop reusable patterns, align common practices, and avoid unnecessary platform divergence. 

Key Responsibilities 

Firmware Architecture and Platform Strategy 

• Define, evolve, and govern the GSD/BID firmware architecture, including reusable control abstractions, subsystem interfaces, state management patterns, diagnostics, configuration, serviceability, and field-support concepts. 

• Serve as a GSD/BID design authority for significant platform-level firmware decisions, interface contracts, and shared framework changes, while coordinating with peer architects where cross-platform consistency or reuse is beneficial. 

• Establish architecture principles, design standards, roadmaps, technical debt plans, and modernization priorities for shared firmware assets and platform capabilities. 

• Lead technical trade-off decisions across firmware, electronics, mechanical systems, controls, manufacturing, service, reliability, cybersecurity, cost, and lifecycle constraints. 

Embedded Platform and Behavioral Design 

• Architect reusable firmware services, hardware abstraction patterns, and platform capabilities across microcontrollers, processors, RTOS-based systems, device drivers, communication protocols, and board-level variants. 

• Define platform approaches for boot, configuration, calibration, firmware update, version compatibility, diagnostics, logging, and service workflows. 

• Guide real-time and concurrent behavior, including timing, resource constraints, race-condition prevention, error propagation, degraded operation, and safe recovery paths. 

• Use UML or equivalent state-machine, sequence, timing, component, and interface models to clarify behavior, identify ambiguity, and reduce integration risk. 

• Guide integration of model-generated firmware, framework code, and handwritten C/C++ so implementation remains understandable, testable, and maintainable. 

System Integration, Verification, and Lifecycle Support 

• Serve as firmware architect in system-level requirements, interface design, integration planning, risk reviews, and design reviews. 

• Partner with electrical, mechanical, systems, software, verification, quality, manufacturing, and service teams to resolve complex cross-disciplinary technical issues. 

• Lead architecture-level root cause analysis for field, production, and integration issues; define durable corrective and preventive actions. 

• Guide firmware validation and verification strategy, including testability, automation, diagnostic hooks, simulation, model-based test approaches, hardware-in-the-loop coverage, and release readiness. 

• Provide firmware architecture input for sustaining engineering, VAVE, component obsolescence, lifecycle management, and released-product maintainability. 

Engineering Governance, Mentorship, and Global Alignment 

• Set expectations for firmware design quality, documentation, coding standards, review discipline, architecture decision records, and disciplined change control. 

• Review and approve significant firmware designs, subsystem interfaces, platform services, and framework changes. 

• Mentor senior firmware engineers and build architectural capability within the Hyderabad R&D team. 

• Influence global engineering teams and peer architects in other divisions through clear technical communication, practical decision frameworks, shared patterns, and cross-divisional alignment. 

Minimum Qualifications 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field. 

• 15 years of experience in product development and engineering

• Extensive experience in embedded firmware development for complex instrument, device, automation, or control-system products. 
• Demonstrated experience defining firmware or embedded software architecture across multiple products, platforms, or major subsystems. 

• Strong C/C++ background and deep understanding of microcontrollers, processors, RTOS concepts, device drivers, communication protocols, diagnostics, and hardware-software integration. 

• Experience designing real-time or concurrent embedded behavior and expressing system behavior through state machines, sequence diagrams, timing diagrams, interface models, UML, or equivalent model-based techniques. 

• Proven ability to lead technical trade studies, architecture reviews, root cause investigations, and cross-functional issue resolution. 

• Strong communication skills with ability to influence globally distributed engineering teams without relying only on reporting authority. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Master's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or related field. 

• Experience with life sciences, analytical instrumentation, regulated product development, laboratory automation, or connected instrument environments. 

• Experience architecting reusable firmware frameworks, instrument control frameworks, middleware, platform services, hardware abstraction layers, or board-support frameworks. 

• Familiarity with systems engineering, requirements traceability, model-based verification, simulation, CI/CD, automated test, hardware-in-the-loop test, and release governance for embedded software. 

• Experience with safety, reliability, cybersecurity, service diagnostics, secure update, field troubleshooting, or lifecycle constraints in connected instruments or regulated devices 

• Experience applying UML, SysML, statechart tooling, or model-generated code in a pragmatic embedded firmware development environment. 

• Ability to simplify ambiguous system behavior into clear models, interfaces, reference patterns, and executable design guidance. 

Impact 

• Guides firmware architecture for the GSD/BID instrument framework in coordination with peer global architects. 

• Raises firmware execution from component ownership to platform architecture, reuse, technical authority, and long-term framework stewardship. 

• Improves quality, reliability, maintainability, serviceability, and development efficiency across instrument programs. 

• Builds firmware architecture capability within the Hyderabad R&D team while strengthening alignment across GSD/BID, global instrument programs, and peer architecture communities in other divisions.