Embedded Firmware Engineer - Linux, Hardware & Sensors

Physical Intelligence; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Physical Intelligence in San Francisco is seeking an experienced embedded firmware engineer to drive architecture and implementation for our data-collection devices. You will work across hardware and software teams to build reliable, real-time systems on embedded platforms.

The role emphasizes hands-on hardware work, driver development, sensors integration, power optimization, and multithreaded services. You will join a cross-disciplinary Runtime team advancing novel embedded devices.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
• Strong software engineering and infrastructure skills, including building data pipelines, evaluation frameworks, and tools for rapid iteration.
• Comfort working hands-on with hardware.
• Strong communication skills for collaborating with hardware, software, and research teams.
• Experience leading initiatives from concept to production on aggressive schedules, and turning ambiguous product goals into functional requirements.
• Experience leading initial board bring-up and software design for first-of-their-kind embedded devices.
• Hands-on experience with SPI, I2C, UART, USB, and debugging hardware-software interactions.
• Experience architecting, implementing and debugging concurrent and multithreaded firmware services.
• Deep understanding of modern operating systems, computer architecture, and trade-offs between compute, memory, and storage.
• Experience bringing up and integrating sensors on embedded systems; camera system bring-up, integration, and tuning is a plus.
• Proficiency in C++.
• Familiarity with Bash scripting and Python for tooling and automation.

Responsibilities

• Drive the architecture and implementation of embedded firmware for devices crucial to PI's data collection goals.
• Work with hardware and software teams to ensure new devices integrate with existing and future data pipelines.
• Embedded Linux System Bring-up: lead integration of embedded Linux devices with real-time sensor processing, including drivers, BSP development, kernel config, hardware bring-up, and performance tuning.
• Hardware/Software Debugging: use hardware abstraction tools and lab equipment to resolve timing issues, race conditions, and interface bugs.
• Power Optimization: analyze and reduce power consumption for battery-operated devices, including sleep states and low-power modes.

Skills

Embedded C++

Embedded Linux

Device drivers

SPI/I2C/UART/USB

Multithreaded firmware

Power optimization

Bash scripting

Python scripting

Education

BS/MS in CS/EE

Job description

Physical Intelligence in San Francisco is seeking an experienced embedded firmware engineer to drive architecture and implementation for our data-collection devices. You will work across hardware and software teams to build reliable, real-time systems on embedded platforms.

The role emphasizes hands-on hardware work, driver development, sensors integration, power optimization, and multithreaded services. You will join a cross-disciplinary Runtime team advancing novel embedded devices.