Permanent Archives | KO2 Recruitment

Senior Mechanical Design Engineer

September 4, 2026/in Midlands, Scotland Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Senior Mechanical Design Engineer
Location: Newmarket
Salary: Up to £65,000 DOE

About the Role

KO2’s client is seeking an exceptionally talented Senior Mechanical Design Engineer to join their elite engineering team in Newmarket. This is genuinely a rare opportunity to work on some of the most exciting and challenging mechanical engineering projects you’ll encounter in your career. You’ll find yourself at the forefront of designing and engineering novel automotive robot systems that are quite literally breaking boundaries in the safety arena.

The role will see you working directly alongside one of the most experienced mechanical engineers on the market, who will serve as an exceptional mentor. This is the kind of technical leadership and guidance that money quite frankly cannot buy, and it’s the sort of opportunity that will genuinely accelerate your professional development in ways that most engineers only dream about.

What You’ll Be Doing

You’ll be responsible for leading the mechanical design function from initial concept right through to successful manufacture. This is not a narrow, specialist role; rather, you’ll be involved in the complete engineering lifecycle. Your primary focus will be to create detailed 3D CAD models using SolidWorks, generating comprehensive technical drawings and system architectures that are both robust and thoroughly thought through. You’ll be running sophisticated structural analysis and finite element analysis (FEA) to understand precisely how systems will perform under real world stresses, vibrations and environmental conditions.

Critically important to this role is your understanding of fabrication, steel construction, welding techniques and bolting strategies. The engineering here is substantial, chunky mechanical engineering, not the sort of lightweight polymeric work you might find elsewhere. You’ll be selecting appropriate materials, evaluating manufacturing methods, and essentially ensuring that everything you design is not just technically sound but genuinely manufacturable by the teams on the shop floor.

There’s also significant work to be done in terms of rework and redesign on the existing platform. We’re looking to take several hundred hours out of the build process through intelligent engineering, which means improving efficiency, reducing production costs, and resolving manufacturing constraints. You’ll be implementing change management protocols, issuing service bulletins, creating and maintaining comprehensive technical manuals, and ensuring absolutely everything meets the rigorous NATO compliance standards required for the end customer.

What We’re Looking For

You’ll have demonstrated, proven experience as a senior mechanical design engineer, with genuine competency in creating robust designs from initial concept through to successful manufacture. Your CAD skills will be exceptionally strong, particularly with SolidWorks, and you’ll have a meticulous understanding of how to create assemblies, components and detailed manufacturing drawings that actually make sense on the shop floor.

You’ll be comfortable applying engineering principles, undertaking calculations, specifying appropriate tolerances, and using FEA to validate your designs. Most importantly, you’ll have genuine understanding of manufacturing processes. You won’t just design in isolation; you’ll understand how things are actually made, cut, welded, and finished. You’ll be knowledgeable about metals and materials selection, and you’ll be able to confidently discuss fabrication, machining, welding, and finishing techniques.

You need to be someone who approaches design challenges pragmatically, who evaluates problems logically and makes evidence based technical decisions. You should be the sort of engineer who takes genuine ownership of accuracy and engineering excellence.

You need to communicate complex engineering information clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. You should be someone who works effectively with colleagues and manufacturing teams. You’ll need to be proactive, capable of working with appropriate autonomy and without requiring constant hand-holding. You’ll demonstrate sound engineering judgement and professional credibility. We’re looking for someone who is confident to make sound technical decisions and take ownership of outcomes.

Why Join

This is quite genuinely a unique opportunity. The products being developed here are genuinely innovative and internationally significant. The engineering challenges are substantial and genuinely interesting. Your work will quite literally make a difference in the real world, deployed across numerous countries globally. If you’re the sort of engineer who wants to do genuinely meaningful work on genuinely interesting problems, with genuinely good people, then this could be absolutely perfect for you.

Apply Today

If this role appeals to you and you believe you’ve got the technical capability and the right attitude to succeed in this environment, we’d very much like to hear from you. Please send your CV through to KO2 and we can have a proper discussion about whether this opportunity is genuinely right for you.

Test Technician – Medical & Drug Delivery Devices

August 26, 2026/in South Permanent /by Chris Oddy

£25,000 – £30,000 | Cambridgeshire | Full-Time, Permanent | On-Site

Are you looking to start or build your career in medical device testing? Join a leading medical device design and development company as a Test Technician within their Device Testing team, working on a genuinely fascinating range of medical and drug delivery devices. From injectable and inhalation devices through to robotics and surgical instruments.

This is a fantastic entry point into the industry, with a clearly defined route for career progression as you gain experience.

What You’ll Be Doing

Supporting hands-on testing across a variety of projects, from early-stage R&D through to formal design verification and post-market investigations
Carrying out mechanical and functional testing – think force testing, weighing, measuring physical dimensions, and detailed visual inspections
Running environmental stress conditioning and working with bespoke test rigs
Following test methods, protocols and quality documentation (SOPs, WIs) to a consistently high standard
Generating and recording accurate test data
Occasionally supporting electronic test and build work

You’ll work closely within a multi-disciplinary project team, under supervision as you learn the ropes.

What We’re Looking For

Previous experience conducting laboratory testing (this doesn’t need to be in medical devices – general lab experience from university or another industry is fine)
A good understanding of health and safety practices in a lab environment
Experience creating test data and writing up results
A relevant degree or equivalent practical/vocational experience (BTEC-level lab work also considered)
Basic Excel skills

You’re likely to be either fresh out of university or have up to around two years’ experience. What matters most is your personality: you’re conscientious, keen to learn, not afraid to ask for help, and able to stay calm and focused under pressure. Any customer-facing or client-service experience (even from part-time work) is a real bonus.

Career Progression

This role offers a genuinely structured path forward:

Test Technician (this role) – supervised for your first 6 months while you build core skills and pass probation
Test Scientist – working independently on specific tasks
Analytical Scientist – recognised as a subject matter expert, responsible for method validation

Graduates with a relevant master’s degree can typically expect to progress through to Analytical Scientist within around two years.

Location & Commute

This is a full time, on-site, laboratory based role in Cambridgeshire. It’s well suited to those driving in, and there are also good cycle routes for anyone commuting from the Cambridge direction or from local villages – with bike storage, showers and towels provided on site for cyclists.

The Package

Salary: £25,000 – £30,000, depending on experience
Full time, permanent position
Structured career development pathway
Work on genuinely varied, high-impact medical technology

Apply now with your CV, or get in touch to find out more about this opportunity.

Electronic Engineer

August 20, 2026/in Midlands Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Job Title: Electronics Engineer

Location: Rugby

Salary: £48,000 – £58,000 + Benefits (including 5% annual bonus)

KO2’s client is looking for an experienced Electronics Engineer to join their product development team in Rugby. This is a hands-on role covering the full product lifecycle — from schematic design and component selection through to PCB layout, firmware development, prototype testing, and production support.

You’ll be working on innovative electronic solutions from concept through to production, combining strong analogue/digital hardware design skills with embedded C/C++ firmware development. This is a great opportunity for an engineer who enjoys ownership of a project end-to-end, working closely with suppliers, the wider development team, and production.

What you’ll be doing:

Designing innovative electronic solutions, including full lifecycle work from schematic and component selection through to PCB layout and prototype testing, in line with design specifications
Developing embedded C/C++ firmware for PIC, NXP or similar microcontrollers, including examining and understanding existing deployed firmware to provide bug fixes with minimal risk
Documenting technical solutions and processes, including capturing requirements for new product developments and generating in-depth specifications from minimal source material
Managing BOM data for new and existing products within the ERP system
Proving functional design across both firmware and hardware, including designing and implementing production testing solutions (production tester firmware/software and hardware rigs)
Contributing to Safety/EMC compliance activities as part of product testing and certification
Coordinating with the development team and liaising with suppliers to transfer solutions into production

What they’re looking for:

Degree in Electronics Engineering or equivalent
Several years’ experience in a similar electronics engineer role
Analog and digital circuit design
Schematic capture and PCB Layout
Embedded Coding in C
Microchip PIC, NXP or similar Microcontroller development
Excellent communication skills
Good knowledge of regulatory compliance requirements

What’s on offer:

Salary of £48,000 – £58,000, depending on experience
5% annual bonus
Additional benefits package

If you’re an electronics engineer who enjoys working across the full product lifecycle — from concept and schematic design through to firmware and production — and you’re looking for a role where you can take real ownership of projects, this is well worth exploring.

Apply today with an up to date CV and a member of the KO2 team will be in touch to progress your application.

Software Infrastructure Engineer

August 6, 2026/in North West Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Software Infrastructure Engineer
Location: Manchester
Salary: Up to £70,000 DOE

KO2’s client is an international, cutting-edge software engineering consultancy. They provide innovative solutions to some of the world’s most challenging system engineering challenges, across a range of industry sectors including Automotive, IoT, Meditech, Finance and Industrial Automation. With their office based in Central Manchester, just a short walk from Manchester Piccadilly station they are easily commutable by public transport from large parts of the Northwest region.

They are looking for software infrastructure engineer whose focus will be designing and delivering the infrastructure that enables them to deliver their technology stacks to customers.

Your key responsibilities:

Support and enable the software engineering teams through delivery of scalable and distributed infrastructure able to be run in cloud and in on-prem contexts.
Provide input to and evaluation of infrastructure technology choices.
Be part of and/or support the infrastructure teams to deliver and operate solutions to customers in highly regulated environments.
Mentoring software infrastructure engineers and helping to curate internal training and development programmes.

We are looking for candidates with the following experience:

Strong Linux and Git skills
Proven production experience deploying and managing infrastructure on at least one major Cloud Service provider, using tooling such as Terraform.
Hands-on production experience developing, deploying, and operating Kubernetes clusters; experience running this on OpenStack is an advantage.
Confident provisioning and deploying to bare-metal instances using tooling such as Ansible.
Solid operational expertise in managing production environments, with knowledge of methodologies such as SRE considered a plus.
A genuine interest in, and ideally hands-on involvement with, FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) communities and/or projects.

Apply today for this exciting, new opportunity within Software Infrastructure.

Embedded Machine Learning Engineer

August 4, 2026/in Scotland Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Embedded Machine Learning and Real-Time Sensor Classification

Introduced by: KO2 Embedded Recruitment Solutions

Client Location: Edinburgh

Salary: £60,000 to £70,000 per annum

The Opportunity

Our client is building the next generation of real-time detection systems that operate at the edge of the network, where connectivity is unreliable and power is constrained. Their vision is straightforward and radical: machine learning models that run on embedded devices, processing sensor data in the field, making instant decisions without relying on cloud infrastructure or continuous data transmission.

This is not a supervised learning problem on tabular business data. This is not model serving from a GPU cluster. This is embedded machine learning in its most demanding form: taking sophisticated sensor-based classification systems and making them run reliably on devices with megabytes of RAM, in real-world environments where data is noisy, conditions are uncontrolled, and failure is not an option.

The client is at the frontier of what embedded ML can do. Most organisations are still building cloud-first systems. They are building ground-truth systems: devices that operate autonomously, make decisions in real time, and remain reliable under the constraints that define actual field deployment.

The Challenge

The engineering challenge is significant. You will be responsible for the complete lifecycle of machine learning models that run on embedded devices. This means:

From Sensor to Deployed Device. You will work with raw sensor data streams from physical devices operating in uncontrolled environments. This data is not clean. It carries noise, calibration drift, temperature sensitivity, and the unpredictable behaviour of systems deployed in the real world. Your job is to transform this stream into a robust, real-time classification model that runs on hardware with severe constraints on memory, computation, and power.

Engineering Under Constraint. Every machine learning decision you make has downstream consequences for embedded systems. A model that requires 512MB of RAM will not run on a device with 128MB. A model that takes 500ms per inference will drain the battery in days. A model that works in the lab but degrades in the field is a failure. You will learn to think like an embedded systems engineer, not a researcher. You will understand that the goal is not maximum accuracy; it is maximum accuracy within the hardware constraints that define your actual platform.

Real-World Iteration. You will take models from lab development through semi-field validation and into live deployment. You will see what happens when your model encounters conditions it has never seen before. You will debug why a model that performed flawlessly during development is behaving unexpectedly in the field. You will iterate based on real-world performance data and build the judgment to know when a model is sufficiently reliable for deployment.

Cross-Domain Transfer. The long-term vision is building a platform where machine learning models and data structures developed for one application can be adapted and transferred to others. You will contribute to demonstrating that this is technically possible; that you can take a model built for one classification task and, with appropriate retraining and adaptation, make it work reliably in a different domain. This is the frontier of applied ML.

The Role

Reporting to the Lead Data Scientist, you will own the development and deployment of machine learning models that sit at the heart of the embedded detection platform. You will work closely with R&D scientists, firmware engineers, hardware designers, and product teams. You will be the bridge between data science and embedded systems. You will own the complete pipeline: from sensor data ingestion and cleaning, through feature engineering and model development, through embedded optimisation and deployment, through field validation and iteration.

Key Responsibilities

Clean, structure, and analyse sensor datasets from real-world deployments for training and evaluation
Develop machine learning models optimised for embedded deployment on resource-constrained devices
Work with TensorFlow Lite, Edge Impulse, or custom firmware deployment strategies to integrate models into actual hardware platforms
Optimise model architecture, quantization, and inference speed to fit hardware constraints without unacceptable loss of accuracy
Collaborate with firmware engineers to integrate your models into live devices, understanding and accommodating their constraints
Test model performance across lab, semi-field, and real-world settings; identify failure modes and iterate
Document training pipelines, feature engineering methods, model validation results, and deployment learnings
Establish reproducible, scalable workflows for model development, retraining, and versioning
Support future platform expansion by demonstrating that models can be adapted across different applications and use cases
Develop model-driven features such as confidence scoring, anomaly detection, and on-device adaptation logic

Must-Haves

5+ years of applied experience in data science or machine learning engineering roles
Strong, demonstrable experience with machine learning for classification tasks
Proficiency in Python and relevant libraries: scikit-learn, TensorFlow, pandas, NumPy
Real-world experience working with sensor data, time-series data, or IoT data streams
Familiarity with embedded ML tools and approaches: TensorFlow Lite, Edge Impulse, ONNX Runtime, or equivalent
Hands-on mindset; comfortable getting close to hardware, firmware code, and the real-world constraints of device deployment
Clear communication; ability to explain model behaviour, limitations, and engineering trade-offs to non-technical collaborators

Nice-to-Haves

Signal processing experience or background in IoT systems
Previous work deploying models to edge devices or microcontrollers
Experience with model quantization, pruning, or other embedded optimisation techniques
Background in biology, chemistry, environmental science, or related domains
Familiarity with sensor calibration pipelines, metadata tagging, or HDF5
Experience with dataset versioning and ML workflow management: MLflow, DVC, Weights & Biases
Understanding of low-power device design and power budgeting

What Success Looks Like in Year One

Models in the Field, Not the Lab. You will have taken at least one machine learning model from initial development through to embedded deployment on a live device. You will have validated that model across lab conditions, semi-field conditions, and real-world deployment. You will have documented accuracy and reliability benchmarks that the R&D and product teams trust enough to build products around.

A Repeatable ML Pipeline. You will have established clean, documented workflows for model development, feature engineering, validation, and versioning. The process will no longer be ad hoc. When new sensor data arrives, when a new classification task emerges, or when an existing model needs retraining, the team will have a clear, reproducible path forward.

Embedded Constraints Are Second Nature. You will think routinely in terms of memory budgets, latency budgets, and power budgets. You will anticipate firmware engineer constraints before they surface as integration bottlenecks. You will make design decisions that balance model accuracy against hardware reality.

Real-World Reliability Mindset. You will understand that deployment is when learning truly begins. You will have built the infrastructure to monitor deployed models, identify when they degrade, understand why, and iterate. You will have learned the hard lessons about what separates a model that works in the lab from one that works reliably in the field.

Cross-Domain Credibility. You will have contributed technical evidence that machine learning systems can be developed for one application and transferred to others, with appropriate adaptation and retraining. You will understand what transfers and what does not.

Why This Matters

Your client is working at the frontier of applied embedded machine learning. Most ML work today is server-centric or cloud-centric. The real innovation now is in making sophisticated machine learning work reliably on devices with severe constraints, in real-world conditions, without cloud dependency.

This is where the intellectual frontier is. This is where the technical challenges are genuine. This is where you will learn, in depth and under pressure, what it actually takes to build ML systems that work.

Your models will power systems that operate in the real world, making real decisions, creating measurable impact. You are not building dashboards. You are not building systems that work in the lab. You are building systems that have to work when deployed in the field, under conditions you cannot control, with hardware you cannot upgrade.

Application

Please submit the following:

Your CV
A cover letter (required) explaining your experience with embedded ML and real-world sensor data, and why this particular challenge interests you
Answers to the following questions:

Can you commit to 3 days per week in Edinburgh?
Describe a time you deployed a machine learning model to an embedded or edge device. What were the hardware constraints, and how did you optimise the model to fit them?
Have you worked with real-world sensor or time-series data? Describe the challenges you encountered and how you addressed them.
What is your current notice period?
Tell us about a time you took a machine learning model or pipeline built for one application and adapted it to a different use case or domain. What was transferable? What had to be rebuilt?
What draws you to embedded machine learning specifically, rather than traditional cloud-based ML or data science?

Embedded Software Engineer

July 29, 2026/in Midlands, South Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Embedded Software Engineer – Battery Management Systems
Location: Warwick – Onsite 3–4 days/week
Salary: £65,000–£75,000

About the Role
A rapidly expanding commercial energy infrastructure company is looking for an experienced Embedded Software Engineer to join their growing team. You’ll own firmware architecture for battery energy storage systems delivering mission-critical power resilience to customers across oil and gas and beyond — working with cutting-edge battery topologies and real-time power management algorithms.

Key Responsibilities

Design and develop embedded C/C++ firmware for battery management controllers, including state estimation, cell balancing, and thermal management
Evolve BMS architecture to support next-gen energy storage topologies, including ring-topology configurations and distributed cell monitoring
Implement and optimise real-time power control logic for fast-response systems (50–240kW+), ensuring 99%+ reliability and uptime
Define and debug power electronics interfaces, CAN/Modbus communication stacks, and safety-critical monitoring systems
Develop test strategies and provide field support for deployed systems

Required Experience

Embedded software development in C/C++ (microcontrollers, embedded Linux, or real-time systems)
Battery management systems, power electronics, or energy storage
Strong real-time fundamentals: interrupt handling, state machines, deterministic timing
Proficiency with CAN bus, Modbus, or RS485
Understanding of power electronics: voltage/current sensing, SoC/SoH estimation, thermal modelling
Git and embedded debugging/test automation tools
IEC 61508/functional safety experience a strong advantage

Desirable
Battery chemistry knowledge (Li-ion, LFP), industrial IoT/cloud-connected systems, FPGA/ASIC design, automotive/aerospace power systems, and wireless integration (Bluetooth/WiFi/4G/5G).

What They Offer
£65,000–£75,000, flexible/hybrid working, employee share scheme, modern engineering toolkit, and genuine technical autonomy within a small, fast-growing team. Plus pension, health insurance, and comprehensive benefits.

How to Apply
Send your CV and a brief cover letter, including links to relevant work (GitHub, past projects, technical write-ups).

Equal opportunities employer — applications welcome from all backgrounds.

Senior Electronics Engineer

July 24, 2026/in Midlands Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Senior Electronics Engineer
Nottingham
£60,000–£70,000

The Role
We’re recruiting for an experienced Senior Electronics Engineer to join a dynamic hardware development team in Nottingham. This is a hands-on position where you’ll take ownership of analogue and digital electronics design for innovative handheld, battery-operated wireless devices.

You’ll be working with devices that connect seamlessly to a central comms hub, spanning IoT protocols such as Bluetooth and ZigBee. The role offers genuine opportunity to progress into team leadership over time, depending on your aspirations.

What You’ll Do
• Design and develop PCBs for wireless measurement and IoT devices
• Work across analogue and digital electronics domains (generalist approach)
• Manage board layout and design process using Altium
• Handle power supply and RF circuit design for battery-operated devices
• Follow robust engineering process and quality standards

What We’re Looking For
• Proven experience designing handheld electronics and wireless IoT devices
• Strong competency in analogue and digital circuit design (no deep power electronics or FPGA specialisation required)
• Hands-on PCB layout skills with Altium (or equivalent proven design tool experience)
• Ability to work independently and follow established design processes
• Communication skills and willingness to grow into a mentoring role

Working Arrangements
Hybrid: 3 days in the office (Nottingham), 2 days remote
Flexible start date (recruitment is moving quickly)

Package
• £60,000–£70,000 depending on experience
• Salary sacrifice options: Electric vehicle scheme, additional holiday
• Pension: Auto-enrolment scheme
• Benefits: Boot camp access, family bereavement support

Why Join
This is a true hardware engineering role with real technical depth. You’ll own the design process from schematic through production, working with a team that values competence and is committed to developing talent. If you want to grow into technical leadership, there’s a genuine pathway here.

To apply or for further information, contact KO2 Embedded Recruitment.

Senior Software Architect

July 23, 2026/in Midlands, South Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Senior Software Architect
Royston, Hertfordshire

£90,000 basic + bonus (£100,000 OTE)

On-site with flexibility

Own the software vision for two global product platforms.

This is a rare opportunity to take genuine architectural authority across an entire software ecosystem, not a slice of it. Our client is a global manufacturer of advanced precision machinery used in demanding, highly regulated production environments worldwide. Their Royston site is the global design authority for the product line, supported by manufacturing operations in the United States and China, and R&D teams in the UK, Germany and Asia.

They currently run two established brands, each with its own software platform, its own hardware platform, and its own development team working largely independently. That is the problem you are being brought in to solve. You will be the person who understands both architectures at code level, forms a view on what should be shared, what should be merged, and what should stay deliberately different, and then sets the technical direction that takes those platforms into their next generation.

What you will actually be doing

Getting properly under the bonnet of two mature software architectures, mapping how they are built, why they were built that way, and where the structural risks and opportunities sit
Defining the technical vision and roadmap for the next generation software platform, aligned to how the business wants to differentiate its two brands commercially
Designing layered architectures that allow multiple teams, in multiple countries, to iterate quickly without tripping over each other
Producing system architectures and high level product specifications for solutions that must be robust, scalable and secure
Line managing a small UK software team of three to four engineers initially, with the German software team of a similar size expected to come under your remit over time
Acting as the technical bridge into the Asia based R&D function, particularly around a growing portfolio of AI driven feature development
Working across the full lifecycle, from early system definition through design, development, deployment and production support
Holding developers to account on implementation quality, challenging approaches and mentoring where it counts
Operating within an established Agile framework (SAFe or Scrum)

The portfolio you will influence spans customer facing application software, advanced imaging and signal processing algorithms, embedded firmware on custom electronics, and internal production and R&D tooling.

The technology

The core application software runs on Windows IoT and is predominantly C and C++, with C# also in the estate. Around it sit custom electronics with their own firmware and embedded operating systems, AI and machine learning workstreams, and an emerging interest in connected and cloud enabled services. Cyber security, and the Cyber Resilience Act in particular, is a live and serious topic, because these are connected products going into industrial networks.

What they need from you

This is not a requirements engineering role and it is not a Scrum Master role with a new title. The team will only follow someone whose technical credibility is beyond question.

Essential:

A career that started in hands on software development and progressed upwards. You do not need to code daily, but you must be someone who could, and who has been genuinely excellent at it at some point
Strong commercial development background in C, C++ and C#, with exposure to Python, .NET, Java or SQL welcome
Experience architecting software that controls physical hardware. This is not enterprise software. The code drives a machine that does something in the real world, and it has to interact properly with electronics, sensors and mechanics
Demonstrable experience operating as a software architect or technical authority within a complex, multi site organisation
The ability to influence, persuade and align global teams without direct line authority
Domain depth in at least one of: application software (industrial automation, networking protocols, UI frameworks), IoT and cloud development (Azure, AWS), AI and machine learning systems, cyber security, or embedded systems (RTOS, bare metal, hard real time)

Highly desirable:

Experience working across European, Asian and North American teams, and an instinct for how working and communication styles differ across those cultures
Time spent living or working abroad
Background in industrial automation, medical devices, robotics, defence or another regulated hardware led sector

Travel and working pattern

Expect to travel less than twenty percent of your time, but at least once a quarter, including regular trips to Germany and roughly quarterly visits to Asia. The role is primarily site based in Royston, with a discretionary hybrid policy in place.

What is on offer

£90,000 basic salary
Annual bonus scheme taking realistic total earnings to around £100,000
25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
Early finish on Fridays
Enhanced work life balance policies, strong wellbeing focus and regular employee engagement events
Genuine international exposure across a global engineering network
Committed investment in training and technical development

Why this one is worth a conversation

Architect roles of this scope do not come up often. Most give you one platform, one team and a fixed direction. This gives you two platforms, three engineering locations, a blank sheet for the next generation, and the mandate to decide what it looks like. If you have built the technical foundation and you now want the influence that goes with it, this is the step.

Apply with your CV for a confidential discussion, or contact Laurence or Andrew at KO2 Embedded Recruitment Solutions.

Software Design Engineer

July 22, 2026/in Yorkshire and the Humber Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Software Design Engineer

Sheffield

Up to £55,000

The Role

Working closely with engineers, product managers, and stakeholders, you’ll help drive continuous improvement and innovation across KO2’s client’s product portfolio. This is a varied, hands-on role spanning the design, development, testing, and maintenance of software, ideal for a practical, curious engineer who enjoys solving real-world problems and adapting as requirements evolve.

Key Responsibilities

Designing, developing, and maintaining software for current and future products.
Working across the full stack, including backend development, frontend/UI design, and APIs and system integrations.
Contributing to automation, tooling, and cloud/infrastructure tasks.
Supporting embedded software and firmware development.
Collaborating with hardware teams on microcontrollers, device communication, and low-level systems.
Investigating and resolving bugs and performance issues.
Writing clean, maintainable, and well-documented code.
Contributing to technical decisions and continuous improvement initiatives.

About You

You’ll have strong analytical and problem-solving skills, be self-motivated, and comfortable working both independently and as part of a team. You’ll be confident working across different parts of complex systems and a strong communicator, with:

Strong programming fundamentals with experience in Python, C/C++ or JavaScript
Experience in embedded systems and firmware development.
Comfort working across both software and hardware environments.
Experience with modern web technologies and UI frameworks.
Knowledge of APIs, databases, and cloud platforms.
Familiarity with Git and collaborative development workflows.
A degree in Software Engineering, Electronic Engineering, or a related discipline.

If you’re a versatile Software Design Engineer who enjoys working across the full stack — from embedded firmware through to cloud and UI — and wants to be part of a collaborative, innovation-driven engineering team, we’d love to hear from you.

Contact KO2 Embedded Recruitment Solutions in confidence, specialists in electronics and embedded engineering.

Embedded Software Engineer

July 17, 2026/in North East Permanent /by Chris Oddy

Embedded Software Engineer
Location: Near Bishop Auckland (Fully Onsite) — finish at 2.30pm on Fridays

Salary: Up to £55,000

The Opportunity

An established engineering business near Bishop Auckland is looking for an Embedded Software Engineer to join their growing engineering team. The wider team of 16 spans firmware, electronics, software and test disciplines. This is a genuinely multidisciplinary environment, giving engineers full input across the entire product lifecycle — from concept and design through to testing and production.

You’ll be working on handheld, battery-powered devices that connect via Bluetooth to a range of devices, contributing to products used in real-world, hands-on applications.

Key Responsibilities

Design and develop embedded firmware for handheld, battery-powered devices.
Work across both RTOS and bare-metal environments.
Develop and maintain communication interfaces including Bluetooth/BLE, USB, SPI, UART, GPIO, and ADC.
Collaborate closely with electronics and test engineers across the full product lifecycle — from concept through to production.
Contribute to the design, development, and integration of Bluetooth-connected products with mobile and Windows platforms.

Skills & Experience

Strong embedded programming skills in C (some C++ desirable).
Experience with RTOS and bare-metal firmware development.
Familiarity with ARM Cortex and NXP processors.
Practical experience with Bluetooth/BLE, USB, SPI, UART, GPIO, and ADC communication protocols.
Experience developing firmware for battery-powered or handheld devices is highly desirable.
Comfortable working as part of a multidisciplinary engineering team with full lifecycle involvement.

What’s on Offer?

Full involvement across the entire product lifecycle, working alongside firmware, electronics, and test specialists.
A collaborative, multidisciplinary engineering environment.
37.5-hour week with an early finish (2.30pm) on Fridays
Fully onsite role near Bishop Auckland.

If you’re an Embedded Software Engineer looking to work on innovative handheld, Bluetooth-connected devices within a supportive, multidisciplinary team, we’d love to hear from you.