Embedded Firmware Emulation Engineer (RTOS)

Zealot Labs, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Zealot Labs, Inc. in New York, NY is seeking a Firmware Emulation Engineer to build AI-assisted emulation of RTOS/embedded targets.

You will reverse engineer non-Linux firmware, design boot flow mappings, and create scalable automation to analyze devices with minimal documentation. The role requires strong C/C++ or Rust skills, hands-on experience with RTOS and bare-metal environments, and a passion for tackling odd hardware.

Qualifications

• Hands-on reverse engineering with non-Linux embedded firmware and various RTOS.
• Strong C/C++ or Rust for low-level systems work.
• Deep understanding of embedded boot flows, memory layouts, peripherals.
• Ability to work with little or no documentation from firmware dumps.

Responsibilities

• Build agentic systems to understand and emulate non-Linux embedded targets.
• Reverse and rehost firmware from niche devices and architectures.
• Design workflows to map boot logic and peripheral stubs for proprietary RTOS.
• Develop AI-driven scalable approaches from manual reverse engineering.
• Work with raw firmware dumps to rapidly build understanding.

Skills

C/C++ or Rust

Embedded boot flows

Reverse engineering

Zero documentation analysis

Tools

QEMU

Unicorn

Ghidra

IDA

Binwalk

GDB

JTAG/SWD

Job description

Zealot Labs, Inc. in New York, NY is seeking a Firmware Emulation Engineer to build AI-assisted emulation of RTOS/embedded targets.

You will reverse engineer non-Linux firmware, design boot flow mappings, and create scalable automation to analyze devices with minimal documentation. The role requires strong C/C++ or Rust skills, hands-on experience with RTOS and bare-metal environments, and a passion for tackling odd hardware.