Director, Systems Software Engineering

Oracle is seeking an engineering director to build and lead a new Systems Firmware team in Bengaluru. You will hire the founding engineers, establish the team’s technical direction and culture, and take responsibility for outcomes that directly affect the reliability and serviceability of our server fleet.

The team’s initial mission is to resolve BMC and BIOS firmware issues in production. Working closely with US engineering teams, infrastructure operations, hardware teams, and external partners, you will lead complex investigations, drive lasting fixes, and improve the diagnostics, testing, and release practices that prevent problems from recurring. The team will participate in on-call rotations during India daytime hours, complementing US coverage through coordinated response and clear technical handoffs.

You will start with four senior engineers and provide close technical leadership while building the practices and partnerships needed for the team to succeed. You will set priorities, develop your engineers, and balance immediate fleet needs with longer-term improvements in firmware quality, security, and operational efficiency.

You will also shape the team’s roadmap and future capability. As additional hiring is approved, our intent is to expand its responsibilities into firmware development and delivery for new server and GPU platforms. This includes working with original design manufacturers and joint design manufacturers (ODM/JDMs), particularly Taiwan-based partners, on platform requirements, firmware integration, bring-up, validation, and production readiness.

This role calls for a leader with deep systems firmware expertise, sound operational judgment, and a record of building strong engineering teams. You should be comfortable guiding difficult technical investigations, holding partners accountable for delivery, and translating lessons from production into better engineering decisions.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and lead the Bangalore Systems Firmware team. Recruit, develop, and retain exceptional engineers working on BMC firmware and BIOS. Establish clear ownership, coach technical leaders, and create an inclusive culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning.

• Own firmware operational support during India daytime hours. Establish sustainable on-call rotations and effective handoffs with US teams to provide continuity of support for Oracle’s server and GPU fleet.
• Lead resolution of complex firmware issues. Guide incident triage, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions across firmware, hardware, and software boundaries. Prioritize work by customer impact and ensure timely resolution and clear stakeholder communication.
• Turn fleet experience into better products. Partner with engineering, operations, and vendors to address recurring defects, improve diagnostics and recovery, and translate customer and operational needs into firmware enhancements.
• Establish engineering and operational standards. Define and evolve runbooks, escalation processes, maintenance procedures, and firmware validation and deployment practices that improve fleet availability, health, security, and reliability.
• Drive disciplined execution. Set priorities and manage interdependent initiatives across teams, balancing urgent fleet issues with long-term improvements. Establish measurable outcomes, manage dependencies, and adjust plans as business needs and resources evolve.
• Champion firmware quality and security. Partner with security and engineering stakeholders to establish secure development practices, clear acceptance criteria, and appropriate testing and release controls.
• Develop strong global partnerships. Align priorities and ownership across US and India engineering teams, fleet operations, hardware engineering, and external partners. Build productive relationships with ODM/JDM vendors, including Taiwan-based partners.
• Expand the team’s product development capabilities as it grows. Build the expertise and processes needed to contribute to firmware architecture, platform bring-up, integration, validation, and production readiness for new server and GPU products.
• Drive continuous improvement. Evaluate emerging firmware technologies, identify team skill gaps, and invest in automation, knowledge sharing, and engineering practices that improve execution and reduce recurring operational work.
  

Required Qualifications

• Demonstrated success leading systems firmware engineering teams, with experience hiring, coaching, managing performance, and developing senior technical talent.
• Deep technical expertise in server firmware, with substantial experience in BMC firmware and/or BIOS/UEFI and the ability to lead engineering decisions across both domains.
• Experience supporting production server environments and leading the investigation and resolution of complex issues spanning firmware, hardware, operating systems, and platform management.
• Strong technical judgment, including the ability to guide architecture and design reviews, evaluate competing solutions, and connect immediate corrective actions to long-term reliability improvements.
• Experience establishing operational support practices, including on-call rotations, incident escalation, root-cause analysis, runbooks, and coordination across geographically distributed teams.
• A record of delivering complex engineering initiatives through clear priorities, resource planning, dependency management, and effective cross-functional execution.
• Experience applying secure development practices, firmware validation, release management, and controlled deployment processes.
• Strong communication and partnership skills, with the ability to explain technical issues, manage escalations, and align engineering teams, business stakeholders, and external vendors.
• A bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building a new engineering team or expanding an existing team from operational support into firmware development and product delivery.
• Experience working directly with ODM/JDM partners on server firmware development, platform bring-up, qualification, and production issue resolution; collaboration with Taiwan-based vendors is particularly relevant.
• Experience with GPU or accelerated computing platforms and the firmware requirements of large-scale cloud infrastructure.
• Familiarity with OpenBMC or other BMC firmware stacks, BIOS/UEFI implementations, and server management interfaces and standards such as Redfish and IPMI.
• Experience improving fleet reliability through firmware telemetry, automated testing, diagnostic tooling, and safe update and recovery mechanisms.