Senior Member of Technical Staff, Firmware Engineer (SoC/RTOS)

Team: ASIC Engineering

Location: Milpitas, California

Commitment: Full Time

Workplace Type: onsite

Salary:

Responsibilities:

• Own firmware architecture for multi-core embedded subsystems; define HW datapath engines and the FW needed for extensible, scalable architectures.
• Partition designs and justify tradeoffs across HW/FW/SW; collaborate with ASIC/SoC, digital design, verification, board, and systems teams.
• Bring up RTOS (selection, BSPs, drivers, scheduler configuration) and multiple boot modes including secure boot, key provisioning, and rollback.
• Implement low-power firmware strategies (clock/power domains, sleep states, retention, wake sources) and validate current/latency targets.
• Develop and optimize drivers and middleware for common interconnects (USB, JTAG, I²C, SPI, GPIO, UART, DMA); integrate with hardware modules.
• Build production firmware for both prototyping platforms and formal product environments; manage transitions from lab to manufacturing.
• Create host-side drivers/tools for Windows and Linux as needed (kernel/user-space interfaces, diagnostics, provisioning utilities).
• Define and implement TDD workflows: unit tests, HIL/integration tests, test frameworks, and CI pipelines; enforce code quality via reviews and static analysis.
• Support board bring-up and validation; read/review schematics and layouts; debug with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and protocol analyzers.
• Contribute to functional safety activities (requirements, traceability, FMEA/Fault-trees, safety mechanisms) per automotive/industry standards.
• Document designs and decisions; make clear calls amid ambiguity with incomplete information.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent.
• 8+ years as a firmware/HW/SoC architect or senior embedded firmware engineer.
• Proven experience with multiple embedded processor subsystems and integration into ASIC/SoC.
• Solid grasp of computer architecture and OS principles (memory, concurrency, scheduling, interrupts, caches).
• RTOS selection and bring-up (e.g., FreeRTOS, Zephyr, ThreadX) including BSPs, bootloaders, and startup code.
• Firmware-controlled low-power design and measurement.
• Multiple firmware boot modes, including secure boot, signing, key management, and recovery.
• Driver development and HW module interfacing (USB, JTAG, I²C, SPI, UART, DMA).
• Firmware and driver development for Windows and Linux environments.
• Schematic/layout literacy for effective HW/FW co-debug.
• Proficiency with lab/debug tools: oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD, and network/protocol analyzers.
• TDD experience and ability to implement robust unit/integration test frameworks; CI with Git-based workflows.
• Comfortable managing ambiguity and making sound tradeoffs with limited information; strong written/spoken communication.
• Experience defining HW datapath engines tightly coupled with firmware control loops.
• Automotive/functional safety (e.g., ISO 26262) or similar safety-critical domain experience.
• Secure manufacturing/provisioning, OTA/update strategies, and rollback.
• Performance/power profiling and optimization on constrained systems.
• Python/CMake/Yocto or build/test tooling for automation and HIL rigs.
• Compliance practices (MISRA-C/CERT C), static analysis, and coverage tools.