Application Engineer

FONTES SINGAPORE PRIVATE LIMITED; Singapore; On-site; SGD 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

FONTES SINGAPORE PRIVATE LIMITED in Singapore seeks an experienced Application Engineer to assist customers in integrating a high-performance AI-enabled semiconductor into their edge devices. The role covers customer application support, reference design development, and collaboration with the AI team to optimize on-device inference and deployment.

The candidate should have 4+ years in applications or embedded hardware, strong C/C++ skills on RISC‑V, and hands-on PCB design experience.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Electrical, Electronic, or Computer Engineering or equivalent.
• 4+ years in applications, embedded, or hardware engineering with shipped products or customer-facing demos.
• End-to-end PCB design (schematic, layout, bring-up) in Altium, KiCad, or OrCAD.
• Strong embedded C/C++ on RISC‑V with FreeRTOS or Zephyr.
• Experience with edge ML deployment and sensor interfacing.

Responsibilities

• Guide customers from requirements to design-in, evaluation, integration, and optimization of the chip.
• Map customer use cases to the chip and deploy models on target hardware.
• Support pre-sales with technical deep dives, feasibility studies, and PoCs.
• Own end-to-end reference designs for wearables and IoT devices.
• Develop embedded firmware and build companion apps and dashboards.

Skills

Embedded C/C++

RISC-V

Python

Hardware debugging

PCB design

FPGA/embedded tooling

Education

BS/MS in Electrical/Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Tools

Altium

KiCad

OrCAD

JTAG/SWD debuggers

Job description

About the Company

Our client is the Singapore-based semiconductor arm of an ASX-listed technology group. The team designs ultra-low-power AI SoCs for edge devices. Its flagship chip targets high performance per watt, bringing on-device intelligence to products where power budget and form factor are tight: wearables, drones, smart sensors, and industrial automation.

The business is scaling and is hiring a full-time Application Engineer in Singapore to help customers design the chip into their products. The role is hands-on and covers two areas: customer application support and reference design development. You will work with customers and partners to understand what they need, then evaluate, integrate, and optimize the chip in their designs. You will also build and present reference designs that show its capabilities. The work spans hardware, firmware, and software, in close partnership with the in-house AI team.

Key Responsibilities

• Guide customers and partners from first requirements to design-in, covering evaluation, integration, and optimization of the chip in their applications
• Take customer and partner use cases (audio, vision, vibration, biosignals) and map them onto the chip, working with the in-house AI team to integrate and deploy models on target hardware
• Back the pre-sales effort with technical deep dives, feasibility studies, and proof-of-concept builds
• Resolve embedded AI integration issues across customer hardware and software
• Split workloads between the host MCU and the AI SoC to meet power and latency targets; measure latency, accuracy, and energy per inference on real hardware setups
• Own end-to-end reference designs for wearables, smart sensors, and industrial and consumer IoT, from concept and BOM through bring‑up, enclosure, and field‑ready reliability
• Run live demos at customer and partner meetings and at trade shows
• Keep a demo library with reproducible builds, versioned firmware, and setup guides
• Design schematics and multi‑layer PCBs for demo boards, carrier boards, and sensor shields
• Choose sensors, MCUs, power, and wireless components (BLE, Wi‑Fi, LoRa) for low‑power operation; lead board bring‑up, debug, and power profiling at µW‑mW levels
• Develop embedded firmware in C/C++ for bare‑metal and RTOS targets; build companion mobile, desktop, or web apps and cloud dashboards for data and visualization
• Work with the software and AI teams to collect and validate on‑device data, closing the loop from field data to deployed model
• Produce application notes, reference designs, tutorials, and benchmark reports
• Turn customer and partner feedback, including on the toolchain and SDK, into actionable input for engineering and product teams

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Electrical, Electronic, or Computer Engineering, or equivalent
• 4+ years in applications, embedded, or hardware engineering, with a track record in shipped products, customer support, or customer‑facing demos
• End-to-end PCB design (schematic, layout, bring‑up) in Altium, KiCad, or OrCAD
• Sensor and peripheral interfaces: I²C, SPI, I²S, UART
• Practical use of lab tools: oscilloscope, logic analyzer, power analyzer, JTAG/SWD debuggers
• Strong embedded C/C++ on RISC‑V, using FreeRTOS or Zephyr
• Python for scripting, data handling, and test automation
• Working knowledge of edge ML deployment (TensorFlow Lite Micro, ONNX); model development is owned by the AI team
• Customer‑facing technical experience in evaluations, design‑ins, or pre‑/post‑sales engagements

Nice to Have

• Experience with AI accelerators, NPUs, or neuromorphic hardware
• Design of wearable or battery‑powered products, including RF and antenna basics
• Integration work on drones, robotics, or flight controllers (PX4, ArduPilot)
• Audio or vision pipelines (keyword spotting, anomaly detection, object detection)
• Mechanical prototyping: 3D printing, enclosure CAD (Fusion 360, SolidWorks)
• A record of writing technical content or presenting at conferences

Success Traits

• Takes ownership across hardware, firmware, and software, without handing problems off
• Communicates technical trade‑offs clearly to engineers, customers, and non‑technical stakeholders
• Gets from idea to working prototype quickly in a startup environment

Why Join

You will join a small team building edge AI hardware from the ground up. You will work alongside the people developing the technology, with customers designing advanced devices, and with partners across the semiconductor ecosystem.

Location : Singapore (on‑site, with some regional travel)

Department : Systems Engineering

Reports to : VP Systems Engineering

Eligibility : Candidates must have the appropriate right to work in Singapore.