Pivotal Systems
Staff Scrum Master – Embedded Software & Firmware
Palo Alto, CA · Staff+
Stay score
odds of building a lasting career here
Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.
Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.
Personalize to your clock →H-1B wage level
the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry
$4,482 more — $154,482 — moves this role to Level II and 2 lottery entries. That figure is inside the range the employer already advertised.
Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $154,482 would place this position at wage Level II. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Computer Occupations, All Other" for prevailing-wage purposes.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Computer Occupations, All Other (15-1299) · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
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from this employer's Department of Labor filings
Files H-1B transfers
Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.
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About the role
- Last year we announced our next-generation aircraft, the Helix, which is rapidly progressing toward general release and scalable production in 2026.
Responsibilities
- Lead Agile/Scrum execution for embedded software, firmware, DevOps, and software verification teams, including sprint planning, daily standups, backlog refinement, reviews, retrospectives, and release planning.
- Partner with engineering leads and product owners to maintain a prioritized, actionable backlog with clearly defined scope, acceptance criteria, dependencies, and completion criteria.
- Drive work to closure by identifying blockers, establishing owners and due dates, and following actions through completion.
- Maintain development plans and execution status across Jira, GitLab, Smartsheet, and Microsoft Project, ensuring that detailed team execution aligns with program-level milestones.
- Support release planning, build and integration schedules, regression testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, aircraft testing, and production software releases.
- Work with engineering teams to define and maintain appropriate Definition of Ready and Definition of Done criteria, including code review, testing, documentation, integration, and verification requirements.
- Support defect triage and prioritization across development, integration, verification, and flight-test activities.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- 5+ years of experience supporting software or firmware development teams in aerospace, automotive, robotics, autonomous systems, industrial controls, or another complex hardware/software environment.
- 3+ years of experience as a Scrum Master, technical program manager, software project manager, engineering project manager, or similar execution-focused role.
- Strong working knowledge of Jira and GitLab, including backlogs, issues, boards, releases, defects, and development workflows.
- Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle, including requirements, architecture, implementation, code review, continuous integration, integration testing, verification, release, and defect management.
- Experience coordinating software verification, automated testing, regression testing, and release readiness.
- Ability to communicate clearly with engineers, functional managers, program leadership, and other cross-functional stakeholders.
- Promote accountability, transparency, and predictable execution while maintaining the flexibility required in a rapidly evolving aircraft-development program.
- Experience developing and maintaining integrated schedules using Smartsheet and/or Microsoft Project.
- Experience working with embedded software or firmware teams and enough technical understanding to follow discussions involving low-level software, drivers, hardware interfaces, communications protocols, and software/hardware integration.
- Strong organizational skills and demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, dependencies, and deadlines simultaneously.
- Demonstrated ability to identify execution problems early and drive teams toward resolution rather than simply reporting status.
Nice to have
- Experience working directly with embedded C/C++, Python, RTOS-based systems, device drivers, bootloaders, or hardware abstraction layers.
- Experience with GitLab CI/CD or comparable DevOps environments.
- Experience coordinating Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL), Software-in-the-Loop (SIL), bench testing, vehicle integration, or flight-test activities.
- Familiarity with requirements and verification management tools such as Jama.
- Understanding of requirements traceability, verification methods, configuration management, and change control.
- Familiarity with aerospace or automotive software development standards and practices, including DO-178C, ARP4754A, ISO 26262, ASPICE, or similar frameworks.
- Experience managing software defects and technical debt alongside new feature development.
- Scrum Master, PMI-ACP, PMP, CSM, PSM, or similar certification.
Skills
- Pivotal is the leader in the emerging market of electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
- Our distinctive tilt-aircraft architecture and scalable platform have been flying for over 10 years.
- Mobility is one of the most highly-valued areas of modern technology investments.
- This is the right company, in the right space, the right strategy, at the right time.
Compensation
- $150k-$215k
Benefits
- Use GitLab and Jira data to monitor sprint health, backlog maturity, development throughput, defects, aging work, and release readiness.
This listing is sourced directly from Pivotal Systems's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.