Staff Low Power Firmware Engineer
Brightai
San Francisco, CA, USA
Posted on Jun 23, 2025
Company Overview:
We are a high-growth company that is looking for teammates who want to be key contributors to changing the way complex physical businesses are run. This is an incredible opportunity to complete work that is disrupting industries. Be a part of scaling a business by increasing the number of devices, events, applications, services, and traffic that result in measurable success for our customers. We have the best and brightest minds in AI, IoT, Cloud and Mobile who have built leading companies in those spaces (Microsoft, Amazon Alexa, Meta/Facebook, SmartThings, Samsung).
Responsibilities:
- Design, implement, and maintain embedded firmware with a strong emphasis on ultra-low power consumption.
- Develop drivers and low-level firmware for microcontrollers (MCUs), sensors, and wireless modules (e.g., BLE, Zigbee, LoRa).
- Collaborate with hardware engineers to define power budgets and validate low-power designs.
- Implement and test power management techniques such as sleep modes, clock gating, and dynamic voltage scaling.
- Perform power profiling and debugging using tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, energy analyzers and current probes.
- Optimize code size and execution efficiency in resource-constrained environments.
- Ability to work in a no-OS or lightweight RTOS environment
- Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and contribute to technical documentation.
- Ensure compliance with industry standards and best practices for embedded development.
- Lead the integration of embedded communication protocols like I2C, SPI, and UART, facilitating robust data exchange across various embedded system components.
Skills and Expertise:
- BS/MS degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
- 7+ years of experience in embedded software development, with a strong emphasis on low power design.
- Proficiency in C/C++ for embedded systems.
- Hands-on experience with low-power microcontrollers (e.g., ARM Cortex-M series, nRF52, Ambiq, MSP430).
- Familiarity with RTOS concepts and experience with lightweight operating systems (e.g., FreeRTOS or Zephyr).
- Deep understanding of hardware/software interaction and power management techniques.
- Deep familiarity with source control (Git) and development workflows.
Bonus Criteria:
- Experience with wireless communication protocols (BLE, Zigbee, LoRa, etc.).
- Knowledge of PCB schematics and the ability to work closely with hardware engineers.
- Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git).
- Experience with scripting languages (Python, Bash) for test automation.
- Prior work on battery-operated or energy-harvesting devices.
- Advanced skills in designing optimized solutions using C for embedded systems with stringent resource constraints.
- Strong background in math-based programming, with the ability to apply linear algebra for complex tasks like digital signal processing and machine learning.
- Experience in developing AI/ML solutions, with hands-on expertise in frameworks such as Edge Impulse, OpenCV and PyTorch for embedded applications.
- Deep experience in system architectures, including event-driven and modular design approaches, as well as abstracting hardware layers (HAL, sensor fusion, application layers).
- Proven experience in developing, maintaining, and scaling CI/CD pipelines, particularly with tools like GitHub Actions, to ensure high-quality, automated build and release processes.