Firmware Engineer

Fruition Group US; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 162,000 - 198,000; Full time

Job summary

Fruition Group is partnering with a mission-driven hardware company to hire a Firmware Engineer. You will own embedded software for power electronics, including energy management, protection, and field reliability, writing low-level C and Rust on real hardware.

You will collaborate with electrical and hardware engineers, covering bare-metal and RTOS targets, with hands-on bring-up and debugging on the bench. Base salary is $180,000 plus equity.

Qualifications

• BS in Electrical/Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• 3+ years of firmware experience on hardware that has actually shipped and operated outside the lab.
• Practical, hands-on experience developing for both bare-metal targets and RTOS environments.
• Strong command of C/C++ in tightly constrained, real-time embedded environments.
• A track record of bringing up new hardware and debugging firmware issues on the bench, not just in simulation.
• Bonus points for real-world Rust experience on embedded hardware, a background in power electronics/motor control/battery management, familiarity with safety-critical or fault-tolerant systems and standards such as ISO 26262 or DO-178C, and comfort working with embedded comms protocols like CAN, SPI, I2C, and UART.

Responsibilities

• Develop and calibrate firmware for inverters, chargers, and battery packs for accurate energy routing.
• Design fault-detection logic with millisecond response times to protect equipment and personnel.
• Build thermal management logic to keep hardware within safe limits under varied loads.
• Collect and structure sensor data for logging, monitoring, and analysis.
• Create interfaces for operators to command and interact with the system in the field.
• Develop firmware for bare-metal and RTOS targets, balancing timing with limited compute memory.
• Collaborate with electrical/hardware teams during bring-up and bench debugging.

Skills

C/C++

RTOS

Bare-metal

Embedded debugging

Education

BS in Electrical/Computer Engineering or equivalent

Tools

CAN

SPI

I2C

UART

Job description

$180,000 base + equity

About the Role

Fruition Group is exclusively partnering with a well-funded, mission-driven hardware company to find their next Firmware Engineer. Our client builds mobile power systems that let military units keep critical equipment - drones, sensors, communications, weapons systems - running in the field without needing a generator or vehicle idling nearby. That independence is what keeps forward-deployed teams both effective and hard to detect.

The firmware team is what turns that hardware into something operators can actually trust once it's out in the field. Our client is hiring a Firmware Engineer to take ownership of the embedded software that runs their power electronics end to end: how the system manages and moves energy, how it protects itself and the people near it when something goes wrong, and how it holds up under real operating conditions far from a lab bench.

You'll write low-level C and Rust that runs directly on hardware carrying real current - not a simulation - working shoulder-to-shoulder with the electrical and hardware engineers building the platform. The team includes engineers who've come from top consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, and defense programs, along with several who served in the military themselves.

What You'll Do

• Develop and calibrate control firmware for inverters, chargers, and battery packs so energy is converted and routed accurately and efficiently.
• Design fault-detection logic that responds within milliseconds to protect equipment and the people working near it.
• Build thermal management logic that keeps power hardware within safe operating limits across a wide range of loads and conditions.
• Pull sensor readings from across the system and structure that data so it can be logged, monitored, and analyzed.
• Build the interfaces operators use to command and interact with the system in the field.
• Design and ship firmware for both bare-metal targets and real-time operating systems, balancing timing precision against limited compute and memory.
• Work closely with the electrical and hardware teams on the handoff between circuitry and code, including hands-on bring-up and debugging on the bench.

What Our Client Is Looking For

• BS in Electrical/Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• 3+ years of firmware experience on hardware that has actually shipped and operated outside the lab.
• Practical, hands-on experience developing for both bare-metal targets and RTOS environments.
• Strong command of C/C++ in tightly constrained, real-time embedded environments.
• A track record of bringing up new hardware and debugging firmware issues on the bench, not just in simulation.
• Sharp engineering instincts and first-principles thinking - comfortable making sound, fast calls even when the data is incomplete, and inclined to dig past the obvious fix to find the actual root cause of a problem.
• Bonus points for real-world Rust experience on embedded hardware, a background in power electronics/motor control/battery management, familiarity with safety-critical or fault-tolerant systems and standards such as ISO 26262 or DO-178C, and comfort working with embedded comms protocols like CAN, SPI, I2C, and UART.