Software Engineer - Embedded Systems

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

Embedded Software Engineer - Embedded Systems & Firmware

Company Background:

Specter is creating a software-defined “control plane” for the physical world. We are starting with protecting American businesses by granting them ubiquitous perception over their physical assets.

To do so, we are creating a connected hardware-software ecosystem on top of multi-modal wireless mesh sensing technology. This allows us to drive down the cost and time of deploying sensors by 10x. Our platform will ultimately become the perception engine for a company’s physical footprint, enabling real-time perimeter visibility, autonomous operations management, and “digital twinning” of physical processes.

Our co-founders Xerxes and Philip are passionate about empowering our partners in the fast approaching world of physical AI and robotics. We are a small, fast growing team who hail from Anduril, Tesla, Uber, and the U.S. Special Forces.

Role + Responsibilities:

Specter is hiring an Embedded Software Engineer to own the full on-device software stack for our distributed wireless mesh sensor nodes, including integration with RF modules, cameras, and multi-modal sensors.

Responsibilities include:

• Designing, implementing, and maintaining performant, reliable firmware and software for Specter’s current and future edge devices across a wide range of embedded platforms (embedded Linux on SoCs, RTOS, bare-metal on microcontrollers).

• Owning the integration of RF modules, cameras, and multi-modal sensors (e.g., environmental, motion, acoustic) into the embedded software stack, including driver development, data pipelines, and hardware enablement.

• Performing board bring-up, reading datasheets/schematics, and debugging complex hardware/software interactions using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD, and other diagnostic tools.

• Collaborating closely with Hardware Engineering (EE, RF, ME), Product Engineering, and backend software teams to co-design interfaces, support new hardware platforms, and enable rapid prototyping and iteration from concept to production deployment.

• Building and maintaining reusable build, test, and deployment infrastructure for embedded targets—including CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and over-the-air (OTA) update mechanisms—to accelerate development of new products and features.

• Debugging and optimizing system performance in real-world deployments, focusing on power consumption, memory footprint, reliability, and edge-case fault tolerance.

• Contributing to foundational platform components such as bootloaders, secure boot implementation, and modular driver frameworks to support fast development of next-generation devices.

Qualifications:

• Proficiency in writing software for embedded targets using C, C++, Rust, or similar languages.

• Experience with embedded Linux on System-on-Chips (SoCs), real-time operating systems (RTOS), or bare-metal programming for microcontrollers.

• Hands-on experience with kernel driver development (Linux) and/or low-level peripheral drivers on microcontrollers, integrating both on-chip and external hardware peripherals.

• Familiarity with a variety of communication protocols and interfaces, including low-level serial buses (e.g., SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, RS485), networking standards (e.g., Ethernet—including 10BASE-T1S, 802.11), and high-speed peripheral interfaces (e.g., MIPI CSI-2, SDIO, PCIe).

• Comfortable debugging hardware using basic lab equipment including logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, etc

Bonus Qualifications (strong experience in one or more of the following areas):

• Embedded Security (e.g., OTA update infrastructure, secure boot mechanisms, hardware security modules like TPM or secure elements).

• Power Electronics (e.g., software control of motors, DC-DC converters, or battery management systems in embedded environments).

• Connectivity (e.g., Bluetooth, Cellular, Wi-Fi, CAN, Ethernet; including integrations like OpenWRT for wireless routing, 10Base-T1S for single-pair Ethernet, or cellular modem drivers).

• Camera Integration (e.g., integrating image sensors or MIPI CSI-2 devices into embedded systems, including FPGA/DSP-based processing for video pipelines or computer vision applications).

• Operating Systems & Build Infrastructure (e.g., Nix/NixOS–based systems, reproducible builds, declarative system configuration, cross-compilation, and deployment pipelines for embedded Linux).