Principal Firmware Engineer
Boston Engineering Corporation5 hours ago
Waltham, MA, USAStaff+
Base Salary
$150k - $175k/yr
Responsibilities
- Lead the design, development, optimization, and technical direction of embedded and firmware systems for robotics, autonomous, maritime, or related platforms.
- Architect and implement firmware integrated with custom hardware, sensors, control systems, and embedded targets.
- Write and review RTOS-based firmware, including task design, synchronization, memory management, and timing analysis.
- Develop and maintain firmware, device drivers, communication stacks, and low-level embedded software.
- Perform hardware bring-up, board-level debugging, integration, manufacturing support, production support, and root-cause analysis across software, firmware, and hardware.
- Review schematics and PCB layouts to identify firmware impacts, integration risks, and design issues.
- Use bench equipment and development setups to enable early firmware development and debug complex system issues.
- Ensure firmware meets real-time performance, reliability, safety, and mission-critical requirements.
- Act as the technical escalation point, anticipate bottlenecks, and develop executable engineering plans for ambiguous or novel problems.
- Lead technical design reviews, architecture discussions, roadmap planning, and software requirements and design documentation.
- Mentor and coach engineers on firmware architecture, debugging, and engineering best practices.
- Improve software processes, configuration management, documentation, repeatable workflows, robustness, debuggability, and performance.
- Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, systems, product, R&D, manufacturing, and customer-facing teams.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field is required; a master’s degree is preferred.
- At least 7 years of embedded or firmware development experience, including at least 3 years in a senior or technical lead role.
- Fluency in C and C++ for embedded systems and Python for tooling and testing.
- Hands-on experience with RTOS environments such as FreeRTOS, ROS2, or Zephyr.
- Experience developing software for embedded targets such as STM32, ARM-based MCUs or SoCs, x86, or PIC32.
- Experience with I2C, SPI, UART, Ethernet, GPIO, and other low-level hardware interfaces.
- Experience with networking stacks, board-level communication issues, embedded development tools, Git, build systems, and debugging environments.
- Ability to author and review software requirements, specifications, design documentation, and effective design reviews.
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines for embedded systems, ISO 9001, CMMI quality frameworks, Agile methodologies, and practical DevOps workflows.
- Experience with maritime systems, robotics, uncrewed systems, military platforms, navigation, localization, sensor fusion, or autonomy is preferred or advantageous.
- Experience with proposal development, feasibility studies, machine learning, computer vision, AI, safety-critical or mission-critical software, government or defense programs, and quality management systems is advantageous.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance and communicate technical concepts, tradeoffs, risks, and status to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Must be a US person as defined by applicable export-control requirements.
Benefits
- Base salary of $150,000 to $175,000 annually, commensurate with experience and qualifications.
- Health insurance, 401(k) match, and paid time off are provided.
- Full-time, office-based role in Waltham, Massachusetts; relocation is not available and travel is minimal.
About Boston Engineering Corporation
Boston Engineering Corporation provides product design and engineering consulting, taking hardware and software products from concept through connected, production-ready systems for defense, medical device, robotics, and commercial clients. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Waltham, MA, the privately held firm is certified to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 13485:2016. Engagements span embedded software, electromechanical systems, and UUV/robotics programs, including early prototyping, system integration, and transfer to manufacturing.