Job Overview

Join TE Connectivity's Passive Optics organization as the Software Engineering Manager for  Software Engineering, and build the people foundation for the team that develops and owns the reusable software platform inside Fusion manufacturing stations. The team is responsible for machine applications, automation and equipment interfaces, HMI and diagnostics, station data and logging, automated testing, and technical software release. This is the one role on the software team dedicated primarily to people leadership, and it is expected to stay hands-on technically alongside the team it leads.

Why This Role Matters

As this team grows toward its planned size, its long-term health depends on someone whose primary job is the people side of engineering, including coaching, honest performance conversations, hiring, and protecting the team's focus. Every other role on this team is primarily technical. This role is defined around people leadership instead.

This role is based on-site in Rochester, NY. On-site presence is required, given the team's daily use of physical manufacturing and test hardware that cannot be fully replicated remotely, and the importance of in-person collaboration.

Job Requirements

People Leadership

• Team Health & Growth: Run regular, substantive 1-on-1s, career development plans, and honest, timely performance conversations for every engineer on the team.

• Hiring & Staffing: Own recruiting, interviewing, and staffing plans for the software team as it grows toward its planned size.

• Culture & Process: Establish and evolve team processes, including planning, ceremonies, and onboarding, appropriate to a growing engineering team.

• Business Partnership: Represent the software team's priorities, constraints, and needs to business leadership, MPDE, FDE mechanical/electrical/controls/vision disciplines, Operations/Site ME, and IT/OT counterparts.

Hands-On Technical Contribution

• Technical Credibility: Personally contribute code and technical work, up to roughly half your time depending on the phase the team is in. Treat this as a minimum level of hands-on technical involvement, and protect the people duties above even when technical work would fill more of your time.

• Standards Partnership: Partner with the Staff Software Engineer to set and uphold engineering standards and best practices, including source control, automated testing, code review, secure development, and controlled software release.

• Systems Foundation: In the team's current early phase, expect to spend meaningful time helping stand up baseline systems such as source control, CI/CD, requirements and interface tracking, reproducible builds, automated test, release/versioning, and the team's development tooling, including its approach to AI-assisted development. This may reduce hands-on coding time in the near term in service of the team's longer-term technical health

What your background should look like

• Education: BS or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Experience: Typically 10+ years in software development, including experience operating at the Senior or Staff Software Engineer level, plus demonstrated interest in and aptitude for people leadership. Formal management experience is a plus but not required.

• Leadership Foundation: Has coached, mentored, or informally led other engineers, and genuinely wants people development to be the center of the job.

• Software Development Practices: Strong personal grounding in version control, testing, and software lifecycle management, sufficient to hold an informed technical conversation with the Staff Software Engineer as a peer.

Core Leadership Competencies

• People Development: Skilled at structured feedback, coaching, and difficult performance conversations.

• Hiring & Staffing: Able to assess technical talent, run a fair interview process, and build a staffing plan against real team needs.

• Process & Delivery: Comfortable running sprint or iteration planning, tracking delivery, and reporting transparently on progress and risk.

• Technical Fluency: Enough hands-on technical background in automation, machine/station software, or industrial systems to understand and direct the actual substance of the team's work.

Preferred Qualifications

• Team Leadership: Prior experience managing or informally leading a small (5-10 person) engineering team.

• Process Ownership: Experience standing up or substantially maturing engineering process, such as source control, CI/CD, or requirements tracking, in a team that previously had little or none.

• Domain Exposure: Background in, or direct exposure to, manufacturing, industrial automation, or hardware-adjacent software.

• Cross-Discipline Partnership: Experience partnering with MPDE/process engineering, mechanical, electrical/controls, vision, Operations/Site ME, or IT/OT security disciplines.

Competencies