Freelance Embedded System Software Engineer Jobs in Boston, MA

Company Overview:

Lexington Medical, Inc. is a medical device company developing and manufacturing minimally invasive surgical stapling solutions in the Boston area. With the highest standards in design engineering and smart manufacturing, our team delivers disruptive technology to healthcare providers, improving surgical outcomes for patients in a thriving $6B+ surgical stapler market.

Rooted in a talent-dense culture, we are committed to innovation, foster continuous growth, and achieve great heights together. At Lexington Medical, Inc., you will have the opportunity to impact the lives of millions of patients worldwide and thrive in a fast-growing MedTech company.

Role Overview:

We are hiring a Principal Embedded Software Engineer to join our R&D team at Lexington Medical, Inc. in Bedford, MA (near Boston). This is a hands-on role: you will be building the embedded software for our surgical stapling platform yourself, writing code, integrating drivers, and debugging at the hardware level, while also owning the technical architecture and setting the long-term direction for embedded systems across the platform. The embedded software operates under tight real-time, safety-critical constraints, directly driving electromechanical subsystems where milliseconds and failure modes matter, and you will be in the lab working through hardware-software integration issues alongside electrical and mechanical engineers, not just reviewing designs from a distance.

This position is ideal for a principal-level engineer who wants to stay personally hands-on building a complex electromechanical system while also shaping architecture, technical roadmaps, and engineering culture, someone who leads by building, not just by directing.

Responsibilities:

• Personally design, build, and integrate real-time embedded software for Lexington's surgical stapling platform and supporting devices, primarily on ARM Cortex-M or equivalent microcontroller-based systems, hands-on ownership of code, not just architecture review.
• Lead software architecture discussions and decisions, driving consensus across engineering on structure, trade-offs, and long-term direction for the embedded platform.
• Own and manage the embedded software codebase, structure, standards, dependencies, and long-term health, as the engineer accountable for its integrity.
• Lead code reviews across the team, setting the bar for code quality, style, and best practices, and using reviews as a hands-on mentoring tool.
• Write production code on a day-to-day basis as an active, hands-on contributor to core embedded systems, not solely in an oversight capacity.
• Write, integrate, and debug low-level drivers, communication interfaces such as SPI, I2C, CAN, UART, and USB, and application-layer logic that directly controls electromechanical actuation and sensing, working at the bench with hardware, not only in the codebase.
• Set embedded software technical standards, establish documentation and verification processes in alignment with IEC 62304 and FDA Class II/III medical device requirements, and apply them in your own day-to-day engineering work.
• Work side-by-side with electrical and mechanical engineers on the physical hardware to solve real-time integration problems, troubleshoot electromechanical failure modes, and validate system behavior on the bench and in test rigs.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to senior and staff-level engineers through design reviews and hands-on pairing on hard technical problems, while partnering with management on hiring and skill development.
• Own technical deliverables and risk mitigation for embedded software projects end to end, from architecture through bring-up, debug, and verification on physical hardware, to supporting the product through its entire lifecycle post-launch.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, or related discipline.
• 12+ years of embedded software development experience, with substantial hands-on work building embedded systems for electromechanical products, preferably in regulated or safety-critical industries.
• Expert-level proficiency in C and C++ for embedded systems, with additional experience in Python or C# considered a plus.
• Deep, hands-on experience with RTOS-based systems, embedded development workflows, and hardware-level debugging tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD).
• Direct, bench-level experience integrating software with complex electromechanical systems — not just theoretical hardware/software boundary knowledge.
• Proven track record leading and mentoring engineers while remaining an active hands-on contributor.
• Deep understanding of software quality systems, documentation control, and risk management.
• Working knowledge of version control and issue tracking tools such as Git and JIRA.

Location & Work Arrangement:

This position is based in Bedford, Massachusetts (near Boston).

Company Overview & Disclaimer:

Lexington Medical, Inc. is a surgical stapling company based in Bedford, MA, developing smart surgical technology for minimally invasive procedures. We're hiring top engineers and medical device sales professionals to help us grow and improve outcomes for patients worldwide.

Visit our Candidate Journey page to learn what to expect from our hiring process.