Embedded Systems Lead

Unicorn Biotechnologies; Sheffield; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension with SIPP options

Weekly team pastries

Monthly all-hands lunches

Conference attendance support

Job summary

Unicorn Biotechnologies is seeking an embedded systems engineer to develop hardware and firmware for innovative biotechnological solutions in Sheffield. You’ll work on critical projects that help cure cancer and heart failure, owning the full stack from design to deployment.

Candidates should have experience in electronics design and firmware development, while enjoying autonomy and influence on product direction. The role offers a collaborative environment and opportunities for professional growth.

Qualifications

• Experience in schematic capture and PCB layout.
• Competent in firmware development on STM32/ARM microcontrollers.
• Experience with hardware debugging and documentation.

Responsibilities

• Own electronics and embedded systems across products.
• Design control boards and sensor interfaces.
• Maintain production firmware for pumps, valves, and sensors.

Skills

Embedded systems development

Firmware development in C/C++

PCB design

Real-time systems understanding

Communication protocols (CAN, SPI)

Education

5+ years of relevant industry experience

Tools

Altium

KiCad

Job description

Anticipated start date: As soon as possible

Salary Band: £55k - £70k (depending on experience)

Full Time, On-site, Sheffield, UK

Do you want to utilise your skills to help cure cancer and heart failure, and make a real-world impact?

AI Science and Autonomous Labs are buzzwords; we’re building the actual robotics and software tooling to enable scientists to design, execute and analyze experiments without human intervention.

This includes complex electromechanical instruments that combine robotics, fluidics, sensors, and software. The electronics and firmware are what make these systems work.

We need an embedded systems engineer who can own both: the boards and the code that runs on them.

This is a role for someone who genuinely works across the full stack of embedded development; schematic capture and PCB layout one week, production firmware in C/C++ the next, field debugging a deployed system the week after. You'll take a design from concept through to manufactured, tested hardware running production firmware in a real lab.

If you've spent your career at a consultancy handing off designs you never see shipped, or at a large company owning one narrow slice of a system, this is your chance to own the whole thing.

WE VALUE

• Engineers who care about what they build, not just how.
• Clear thinking, pragmatism, and sound judgment over buzzwords.
• A bias for action to build products with customer value.
• Friendly, organised, efficient, and enthusiastic people with a can-do attitude.
• People who take responsibility and follow problems through.
• Using the right tools, including AI, to work smarter, not harder.
• Low-ego individuals who love asking questions & go above and beyond to help the team succeed.

THE ROLE

You’ll work alongside our principal engineer to own the electronics and embedded systems across our products and platforms. Day-to-day, that means:

• Schematic design and PCB layout for control boards, sensor interfaces, power distribution, and system interconnects.
• Writing and maintaining production firmware in C/C++ on STM32/ARM microcontrollers, real-time control of pumps, valves, sensors, and actuators.
• Designing and implementing inter-device communication (CAN, Ethernet, serial) across networked instruments.
• Building the integration layer between embedded systems and our monitoring platform and telemetry stack; APIs, data pipelines, and control interfaces.
• Prototyping and validating designs in our in-house electronics workshop, driving rapid iteration from concept to working board.
• Design for manufacture: translating prototypes into production-ready boards, managing BOM optimisation, and coordinating with contract manufacturers.
• Supporting EMC, CE, and UL compliance testing and designing for long-term reliability in regulated environments.
• Field debugging and supporting deployed systems, diagnosing issues remotely and on-site, and feeding lessons back into the codebase.
• Contributing to system architecture decisions as we scale from single instruments to multi-unit autonomous production lines.

You’ll have high autonomy and direct influence on technical decisions. The learning curve is steep, but you’ll expand your skills faster here than in most environments, and everything you build ships to real customers.

NEED TO HAVE

• Demonstrated experience across both electronics hardware design (schematic capture, PCB layout, component selection) and firmware development (C/C++ on microcontrollers such as STM32/ARM).
• Competence with PCB design tools (Altium, KiCad, or equivalent), hands-on prototyping skills: comfortable with soldering (THT and SMD), rework, and bench testing.
• Strong understanding of real-time systems, interrupts, peripherals, and hardware abstraction layers.
• Experience with communication protocols: CAN, SPI, I2C, UART, Ethernet/TCP-IP.
• Comfort interfacing embedded systems with higher-level application layers (Python, REST APIs, MQTT, or similar).
• Evidence of taking designs from concept through to production hardware running deployed firmware.
• Experience developing or maintaining full-stack software with a Python backend.
• A methodical approach to debugging, testing, and documentation.

NICE TO HAVE

• Exposure to industrial control, robotics, or bioprocess instrumentation.
• Understanding of compliance testing (EMC, CE, UL) and design for reliability.
• Comfort using AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code) to accelerate workflows.
• Prior experience in a start up or scale up environment.

While we consider applicants from any relevant background, you will likely have >5 years of relevant industry experience.

BENEFITS

• Product ownership: your hardware and firmware ship on systems deployed in real labs helping scientists advance real science.
• Direct influence on technical decisions and product direction, and close collaboration with world-class scientists and engineers.
• Pension with SIPP options and support managing your investments if you want it.
• Weekly team pastries and monthly all-hands lunches.
• Conference attendance and professional development support.
• A culture that values autonomy, responsibility, and thoughtful work.
• Based in Sheffield, the UK's greenest city, on the doorstep of the Peak District, <15 minutes from our purpose-built R&D and manufacturing facility.

ABOUT US

Unicorn Biotechnologies is building the infrastructure for autonomous cell biology. We combine robotics, biology, and software into powerful, easy-to-use platforms that let scientists and manufacturers standardise, scale, and automate their workflows, from bench to factory floor. We're a Sheffield-based team with deep R&D foundations, now scaling to meet growing demand from our global customer base. You'll have real ownership over your work, genuine influence on product direction, and the chance to shape a company at a scale-up inflection point.

UNIVERSITY

Unicorn Biotechnologies is an equal opportunity employer committed to providing a working environment that embraces inclusion and diversity.