Engineer, Embedded Firmware

Ayar Labs; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equal opportunity employer

Job summary

Ayar Labs is hiring a firmware engineer to drive embedded firmware design from inception to customer deployment in San Jose. You will work with multi-disciplinary teams to validate hardware, optimize SerDes interfaces, and implement control algorithms for photonic subsystems.

You will build and test firmware, participate in CI/CD, and document architectures and APIs to support silicon bring-up and product deployment. This role demands hands-on work in a fast-paced startup environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's in Electrical/Computer Engineering or related field with 3+ years of relevant experience.
• Proven bare-metal embedded firmware development with strong C programming skills.
• Experience with multiple microcontrollers and firmware debugging tools.
• Proficiency in Git workflows, modern firmware tools, and CI/CD practices.
• Hands-on, proactive contributor in fast-paced startup environments.
• Experience scripting in Python and using Make-based build flows.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize embedded firmware for high-speed SerDes interfaces and subsystems.
• Collaborate with analog, digital, and photonic designers to define firmware architecture for multi-chip packages.
• Write unit and integration tests; participate in code reviews; maintain CI/CD-driven quality.
• Develop firmware test code for initial silicon bring-up; debug hardware–firmware interactions.
• Partner with hardware, validation, systems, and software teams across product life cycle.
• Maintain clear documentation including APIs, architecture docs, module specs, and release notes.

Skills

Bare-metal firmware

Embedded systems

Python scripting

Git workflows

CI/CD

C programming

Education

Bachelor's in Electrical/Computer Engineering

Tools

Git

CI/CD tools

Make

Python

Job description

Ayar Labs is shattering AI data bottlenecks by moving data at the speed of light. As pioneers of co-packaged optics (CPO), we are using light instead of electricity to move data faster, further, and with a fraction of the energy needed to fuel the explosive growth of AI models.

Backed by industry giants like NVIDIA, AMD and Intel and manufactured in partnership with the world’s leading semiconductor ecosystem, Ayar Labs’ co-packaged optics solution is key to unleashing next-generation AI scale-up architectures.

In this role, you will drive firmware design from inception to customer deployment, ensuring seamless hardware validation and integration. This is a unique opportunity to leverage your expertise in embedded systems, multi-chip package environments, and high-speed SerDes to shape the future of optical interconnect.

Essential Functions

• Design, develop, and optimize embedded firmware for controlling high-speed SerDes interfaces and electronic/photonic subsystems.
• Collaborate closely with analog/mixed-signal, digital, and photonic block designers to develop and implement sophisticated control algorithms for our photonic circuits and establish the micro-architecture and embedded requirements for our multi-chip package systems.
• Write unit tests and integration tests for firmware modules; participate in firmware code reviews; maintain high-quality firmware through CI/CD practices.
• Develop and execute firmware test code to support initial silicon power-on and bringup activities; debug hardware-firmware interactions at first silicon.
• Partner effectively with hardware, validation, systems, and software teams throughout the product development lifecycle.
• Maintain clear technical documentation including APIs, firmware architecture documents, module specifications, and build/release notes

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's in Electrical/Computer Engineering or a related field with 3+ years of relevant industry experience.
• Proven expertise in bare-metal embedded firmware development, with strong programming skills in C.
• Experience with various microcontrollers and firmware debugging tools.
• Proficiency with modern version control workflows (e.g., Git), modern firmware development tools, and CI/CD tools.
• Hands-on, proactive approach with the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic startup environment.
• Experience in scripting with high level language like Python.
• Experience with Make-based build flows.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to own architecture and development of firmware modules from scratch.
• Experience in embedded firmware development for high-speed electronics and photonics applications.
• Silicon bring-up experience for high-speed SerDes and photonics applications.

Salary Range: $146,000 - $200,000

Ayar Labs is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is strongly committed to all policies which will afford equal opportunity employment to all qualified persons without regard to age, sex, national origin, race, color, ethnicity, creed, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. It is the policy of Ayar Labs to provide reasonable accommodation when requested by a qualified applicant or employee with a disability, unless such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. Veterans are more than welcome and encouraged to apply.