Senior Firmware Engineer

Saef BV; Schiphol; Hybrid; EUR 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Travel expenses covered

Company laptop and phone

Job summary

Saef is seeking a Senior Firmware Engineer to own the firmware at the heart of our luxury watch hardware. You will architect and implement embedded software, optimize ultra-low-power operation, and maintain robust BLE communication with the mobile app.

Join a small, senior team focused on system-level hardware, software, and security. The role emphasizes hands-on development, collaboration, and bringing products from prototype to production in a hardware-constrained context.

Qualifications

• 5+ years writing production embedded firmware in C/C++ on resource-constrained MCUs.
• Deep experience with low-power design and real-world power optimisation.
• Solid command of BLE and wireless connectivity in embedded contexts.
• Comfort working close to hardware: schematics, datasheets, oscilloscopes, and board bring-up.
• Bias toward shipping working firmware over perfect abstractions with sound engineering judgment.
• Effective in a small, in-person, high-trust team.

Responsibilities

• Architect, write, and ship the embedded firmware that runs our hardware.
• Own power management and ultra-low-power operation; optimize nanoamp usage.
• Build and harden the BLE connectivity layer between device and app.
• Collaborate with hardware team through bring-up, debugging, and silicon iterations.
• Incorporate security and reliability as core design principles.

Skills

Embedded firmware

Low-power design

BLE/wireless connectivity

Hardware familiarity

Shipping-focused engineering

Team collaboration (in-person)

Tools

Oscilloscopes

Job description

Full-time | Hybrid | near Schiphol, Netherlands

Own the firmware at the heart of Saef, where every nanoamp matters.

The role

Saef's hardware comes alive in its firmware. It runs on a tiny, power-constrained device that has to stay reliable, secure, and connected inside a luxury watch for years. As Senior Firmware Engineer at Saef, you own it. You'll architect and write the embedded software that drives our hardware, make power harvesting and ultra-low-power operation work in practice, and keep the device talking cleanly to the app. This is a hands-on senior role working shoulder to shoulder with our hardware architect and the app team.

What you'll do

• Architect, write, and ship the embedded firmware that runs our hardware
• Own power management and ultra-low-power operation; on a device this small, every nanoamp matters
• Build and harden the BLE connectivity layer between device and app
• Work hand in hand with the hardware team through bring-up, debugging, and iteration on real silicon
• Build with security and reliability as first principles; a device that fails or can be tampered with breaks the promise we sell

What we're looking for

• 5+ years writing production embedded firmware, ideally in C/C++ on resource-constrained microcontrollers
• Deep experience with low-power design and real-world power optimisation
• Solid command of BLE and wireless connectivity in embedded contexts
• Comfort working close to hardware: schematics, datasheets, oscilloscopes, and board bring-up
• A bias toward shipping working firmware over perfect abstractions, paired with sound engineering judgment
• Effective in a small, in-person, high-trust team

Nice to have

• Experience with energy harvesting or battery-free designs
• Familiarity with secure boot, cryptography, or hardware security on embedded devices
• Exposure to consumer hardware, wearables, or miniaturised electronics
• Experience taking an embedded product from prototype through certification to production

What you'll get

• Real responsibility from day one in a small, senior team
• Ownership of the firmware at the core of the product
• Travel expenses covered
• Company laptop and phone

About Saef

Saef is building the new protection standard for luxury watches. Invisible, always-on hardware goes into the watch. A phone app tells the owner where it is and that it’s safe. We're a small, senior team of engineers and designers that treats this as a system-level problem: hardware, software, security, and trust, all built together. We're launching with select partners, with beta planned in 2027. We can demo a real working product at any stage of development. That's not a tagline. It's how we work.

Please note

Candidates must have valid authorization to work in the Netherlands (e.g., EU/EEA nationality, a valid work permit, or a residence permit that includes work rights). We are unable to sponsor visas for this role.