Principal Product Development Engineer

What You'll Do:

Serve as the senior individual-contributor technical authority who researches, architects, and delivers innovative broadband device solutions—from concept through launch—spanning fiber and fixed-wireless CPE, software platforms/firmware, and associated applications/services. Translate strategic business outcomes into market-competitive, scalable products and accelerate AT&T’s converged device vision across consumer and enterprise markets. 

Key Responsibilities — Technical Program Management for Device Delivery 

• Own the integrated technical program plan for broadband device delivery (charter, scope, roadmap, milestones, and critical path) spanning research, hardware design, system architecture, platform/software, validation, security, compliance, manufacturing, and channel readiness. 

• Orchestrate all impacted workstreams with clear RACI and dependency mapping; run daily/weekly operating cadences (standups, triage, design/architecture reviews) and drive decision logs across Product, Engineering, Ops, Finance, Care, and Compliance. 

• Establish and govern stage gates (AR, EV, DVT, PVT, Field Trial Entry/Exit, LRG) with measurable entry/exit criteria; maintain traceability from PRD/SRD to acceptance. 

• Lead vendor/partner program execution (silicon, ODM/OEM, software/platform): define SOWs, SLAs, and deliverables; manage NRE, schedules, change control, and cross-vendor integration plans. 

• Manage engineering execution at scale—backlog, release trains, CI/CD build integration, defect burn-down, and risk/issue RAID logs—ensuring delivery to scope, quality, and schedule. 

• Set quality and validation strategy (RF/Wi‑Fi, performance, stability, security, regulatory) with target KPIs and test coverage; ensure gate readiness and factory/acceptance preparedness. 

• Instrument program and product health via dashboards (throughput, latency, stability, FOTA success, security findings, schedule/budget variance, vendor SLA adherence) and provide executive-ready updates and mitigations. 

• Drive proactive risk management and incident response—root cause (5 Whys/FMEA), corrective/preventive actions, and lessons-learned—to protect launch timelines and customer experience. 

• Plan and steward budgets/resources (BOM/cost targets, capex/opex, staffing plans) and negotiate trade-offs to achieve performance, cost, and time-to-market objectives. 

• Lead launch and post-launch lifecycle: field trial design and gating, launch readiness (runbooks, monitoring), and early-life support with telemetry-driven improvements and patch cadence management. 

What You'll Bring: 

• Broadband device architecture (SoC, RF/antenna, thermal, secure boot, key management). 
• Access & connectivity: Wi‑Fi 6/6E/7, 3GPP for FWA, GPON/XGS‑PON interfacing, QoS/traffic mgmt. Embedded/
• SW: Linux/prplOS, BSP, drivers, USP/TR‑069, telemetry, OTA/FOTA, security hardening. 
• Cloud/Services: device-to-cloud APIs, fleet mgmt, analytics/observability, app/service delivery. 
• Smart‑home ecosystems: Matter/Thread/Zigbee/Z‑Wave; converged wireless-broadband experiences. 
• Bachelor’s degree BS/BA (or equivalent). 
• 7+ years in broadband or wireless CPE product development with end‑to‑end ownership and at least 2–3 shipped programs at scale. 
• Depth in Wi‑Fi, 3GPP/FWA, fiber‑adjacent architectures; embedded Linux/prplOS; security; telemetry; FOTA. 
• Proven influence in matrixed environments; vendor leadership; KPI‑driven decision making. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• MS (EE/CS/Telecom) or MBA with strong technical foundation. 

• Silicon bring‑up, ODM design transfer, factory test, and carrier acceptance experience. 

• Familiarity with prpl, TR‑369/USP, device analytics; smart‑home/converged integrations. 

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