Lead Firmware Engineer

Position Overview

We are seeking a talented Firmware Engineer to join our engineering team and lead embedded software development for a novel LLM accelerator architecture. This role focuses on low-level firmware that directly interfaces with custom hybrid optical-electronic compute hardware, ensuring reliable operation, performance, and scalability.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement firmware and supporting toolchains for a custom LLM accelerator architecture

• Develop optimization strategies that efficiently map software behavior to hardware execution

• Build low-level firmware components for hardware control, initialization, and runtime operation

• Optimize memory access patterns and data movement across the system

• Interface with higher-level software stacks and ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, Triton)

• Develop and maintain testing infrastructure to ensure firmware reliability and performance

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field

• 10+ years of industry experience

• 5+ years of experience in firmware engineering, embedded systems, or low-level systems programming

• Expert-level proficiency in Embedded C++ (required) and Python for tooling/automation

• Strong experience with embedded systems programming and hardware interfaces

• Deep understanding of computer architecture, memory hierarchies, and parallel computing

• Experience with hardware communication protocols and register-level programming

Preferred Skills

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field

• Expertise in high-performance, low-latency system design, including power and thermal optimization

• Strong knowledge of embedded processor architectures (ARM, RISC-V) and high-speed interfaces (AXI, PCIe, AMBA)

• Ability to read and understand RTL for hardware/software co-design

• Experience building multi-node or multi-processor embedded systems using bare metal or RTOS (e.g., Zephyr, FreeRTOS)

• Familiarity with large language model architectures and AI/ML accelerators (GPUs, TPUs, FPGAs)

• Experience with virtual platforms, simulators, cross-compilation toolchains, and containerized workflows

• Proven ability to manage OTA update systems and debug complex concurrent or asynchronous systems

Technical Skills

• Languages: Embedded C++ (essential), Python, Assembly

• Bus Protocols: AXI, AMBA, PCIe, DDR, high-speed serial protocols

• Processors: ARM Cortex-M/A, RISC-V, or similar architectures

• Embedded Platforms: Bare metal, FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or similar RTOS

• RTL & Simulation: Verilog/SystemVerilog (reading), ModelSim, QuestaSim, or similar tools

• Hardware Interfaces: Register-level programming, memory-mapped I/O, DMA

• Distributed Embedded Systems: Inter-node communication, message passing, distributed state management

• Testing & QA: Unit testing, hardware-in-the-loop, integration testing

• CI/CD: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI

• Development Tools: CMake, Git, Docker

• Debugging Tools: GDB, JTAG, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers

• Operating Systems: Linux (user-space tooling), embedded RTOS internals

Technical Environment

• Languages: Embedded C++ (primary), Python for tooling, Assembly for low-level optimization

• Hardware Tools: JTAG debuggers, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers

• Simulation: RTL simulators for hardware/software co-verification

• Testing: Hardware-in-the-loop systems, automated regression suites, CI pipelines

• Focus Areas: Firmware development, hardware abstraction layers (HAL), and hardware-software co-design