Firmware Engineer

Department: Software Engineering

Location: Palo Alto

Employment Type: FullTime

About Mind:

Mind Robotics is building Physical AI for real-world industrial deployment, starting with the factory floor. We believe the hardest problems in AI are solved when researchers and engineers are hands-on with the physical world every day - and we're looking for people who are passionate about robotics, value ownership, and are excited to tackle difficult problems. Join us if you want to move beyond digital intelligence and put intelligence into motion.

About the team and the role:

At Mind Robotics, we're building generalized physical AI—robotic systems capable of dexterous, adaptive, and reasoning-intensive work in real-world industrial environments. Firmware is the connective tissue between intelligence and action; the layer where commands become motion.

We're looking for a Firmware Engineer to own the embedded software that brings our robots to life — from low-level motor control and real-time scheduling to the communication buses that tie the whole system together.

Responsibilities:

• Write, test, and maintain production-quality firmware in C/C++ or Rust for microcontrollers and embedded processors across the robot.

• Implement and debug embedded communication protocols — CAN, EtherCAT, I2C, SPI, UART — across distributed hardware nodes.

• Configure and manage microcontroller peripherals — GPIO, ADC, PWM, timers, and DMA — to interface with sensors, actuators, and power electronics.

• Integrate sensors (encoders, IMUs, torque sensors, force/torque arrays) into the robot's real-time pipeline.

• Work closely with electrical engineers on board bring-up, pinout definitions, and hardware-software interface design.

• Develop and tune real-time control loops for motors, actuators, and other physical systems under hard timing constraints.

• Build tooling to support firmware validation, regression testing, and hardware-in-the-loop systems.

• Triage and debug complex interactions between firmware, hardware, and higher-level software during development and field deployment.

Requirements:

• Technical degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or equivalent experience.

• Demonstrated experience (through work, research, or projects) building firmware for real physical systems — robots, motors, power electronics, or similar.

• Deep fluency in C/C++ and/or Rust for embedded targets; comfort reading datasheets and writing drivers.

• Hands-on experience with RTOS environments (FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or similar) — task scheduling, priority management, and real-time guarantees.

• Strong working knowledge of embedded communication protocols: CAN, EtherCAT, I2C, SPI, UART.

• Direct experience configuring microcontroller peripherals (GPIO, ADC, PWM, timers, DMA) and understanding their impact on system timing and performance.

• Experience integrating sensors and actuators at the firmware level — not just using libraries, but understanding the hardware underneath.

• Proven ability to debug across the hardware/software boundary with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and JTAG.

• You are comfortable with ambiguity, move fast, and have an "engineering curiosity" that drives you to understand how the entire system works, not just your part.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with safety-critical or deterministic real-time systems (IEC 61508, ISO 26262, or similar).

• Familiarity with field-oriented control (FOC) or other motor control algorithms.

• Experience with Linux-based embedded systems and the boundary between RTOS and application layers.

• Python scripting for test automation, data logging, or hardware validation.