Senior Engineering Manager, Electrical & Embedded Engineering

SOE's electrical and embedded teams are at the core of what makes this company work. They're the reason our hardware flies in space, powers clean energy systems, and controls surgical devices. This role is for the leader who wants to build that capability for the long term; someone who understands that the highest-leverage thing a senior engineering leader can do is make the team around them more capable than they were yesterday. 

Role Overview:
As Senior Engineering Manager for Electrical and Embedded Engineering, you are the primary technical and people leader for both disciplines at SOE. You are accountable for design decisions, execution quality, and delivery outcomes across projects in aerospace, renewable energy, medical devices, and robotics. You define the long-term technical vision for each discipline, develop engineering talent, and shape the processes and infrastructure that enable SOE’s engineering organization to grow.

This is a strategic leadership role with real technical depth. You will partner with executive leadership to set direction, serve as the escalation point for critical trade-offs and delivery challenges, and attract the kind of talent that raises the bar for everyone.

What You Will Do: 

• Define the long-term technical vision and capability roadmap for both the electrical engineering and embedded software disciplines
• Own electrical and embedded technical decisions and outcomes across projects, serving as the escalation point for critical design tradeoffs, technical risk, and delivery challenges
• Lead, mentor, and manage the electrical and embedded teams, setting clear performance expectations, developing their technical and leadership skills, and building a strong, accountable engineering culture
• Identify strategic capability gaps and develop standards, processes, and best practices to improve design quality, consistency, and execution efficiency
• Partner with Business Development and project leadership to define technical scope, execution plans, and success criteria
• Attract and retain electrical and embedded talent by reinforcing SOE’s first-principles engineering philosophy

What You Will Need: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, or a related field
• 10+ years electrical engineering, embedded systems, and hardware development for aerospace, renewable energy, medical devices, or similar industries 
• 7+ years in engineering design leadership and people management roles, with demonstrated ability to develop engineers, identify high-potential talent, and build accountable teams
• Expertise in successfully executing end-to-end electrical and embedded systems design from requirements generation and architecture through software and hardware bring-up
• Strong management capabilities: ability to build a sense of community, grow people deliberately, and improve the output of the engineers around you
• Exceptional communication skills; ability to synthesize and communicate technical information to non-technical stakeholders
• Ability to manage technical risk, scope, and delivery across multiple projects
• Deep expertise in either electrical engineering or embedded systems, with a strong working knowledge of the other discipline and enough breadth across both to set technical direction, evaluate trade-offs, and develop engineers on either side

What Would Be Useful:

• Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, Engineering Management, or a related field
• Previous experience in a consulting or customer-facing role
• Experience designing PCBs for high-reliability applications
• Proven hands-on experience designing and implementing software development processes (SDLC, SecDevOps, CI/CD) including evaluating, selecting, and configuring supporting toolchains and infrastructure to establish scalable development workflows
• Demonstrated experience in navigating ambiguous situations and delivery of difficult information to senior leadership, employees and clients 

Benefits:

• Compensation range of $190,250-$231,620 + equity incentive plan
• Flexible work hours and work from home policy 
• 100% employer-paid health insurance (Medical, Dental, Vision) for employees + 50% dependent coverage
• Unlimited paid time off policy, 11x paid company holidays, 12x paid sick days
• 401(k) retirement account and employer matching (Safe Harbor 4%)
• Generous paid parental leave
• Relocation assistance available if 50+ miles away from the office
• Electric Vehicle (EV) charging ports
• Catered lunches, snacks, and accessible kitchen

Our Values in Practice:
SOE's four core values are the standard by which we operate. As Senior Engineering Manager, you are expected to model them for the organization in every technical decision, people development conversation, and strategic initiative:

• Lead with Curiosity: Build a team culture where questioning assumptions is the default. Coach engineers to understand the business need behind the technical requirement. Create an environment where everyone, at every level, feels safe to ask why.
• Own the Outcome: Take accountability for both disciplines, not just your own work. Build the systems and culture that ensure consistent delivery. Address performance gaps directly, communicate risks early, and hold the standard across the organization.
• Build the Right Thing: Make strategic technical decisions that balance advancement with practical business application. Ensure the team's work creates lasting value for clients and for SOE. Push back when scope, requirements, or priorities drift from what actually matters.
• Empower Others: Develop comprehensive growth plans for each team member and track progress. Identify high-potential engineers and prepare them for the next level. Your highest-leverage contribution is the capability of the team you leave behind.

About SOE:
SOE is an engineering consulting firm that specializes in electrical, electromechanical, and embedded systems. Founded in 2016, we’ve grown from a 3-person operation to a team of 40+ engineers across offices in El Segundo, CA and Redmond, WA. In that time, we’ve completed over 250 projects for more than 100 clients. Our designs control rocket engines, manage satellite communications, instrument fusion reactors, and are enjoyed by consumers around the world. The only thing we won’t build are weapons.

We’re 100% employee-owned, which means that every engineer at SOE has a real stake in what we build. We structured the company this way because we believe the people best equipped to advance our mission are the ones doing the work.

We approach problems from first principles. We break challenges down to their most fundamental components, which is how we find solutions that hold up across industries, use cases, and engineering functions. We focus on solving the right problems and building the teams to take them on.

Additional Requirements:

• Applicant must be able to work 40 hours a week in El Segundo, California, USA
• Applicant must be eligible to work on ITAR projects
• Job Type: Full-time (Salary)

Export Control Requirements:

• To conform with U.S. Government export control regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide sponsorship at this time.

If you don’t meet 100% of the preferred skills and experience, we encourage you to still apply!
Second Order Effects is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with SOE is governed on the basis of excellence and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.